English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For March 07/2023
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
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Bible Quotations For today
The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 23/01-12: “Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practise what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. They love to have the place of honour at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have people call them rabbi. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 06-07/2023
Lebanon adopts ‘dollarization’ as currency, economy crumble
Lebanon Judge Sets March 15 Hearing for Central Bank Chief in Graft Probe
Judge sets March 15 session for Salameh's interrogation
Reports: Franjieh seeks votes as Hezbollah bets on Bassil stance
Bishop Abu Najem starts new tour for Christian consensus over president
Sami Gemayel meets Abu Najem, refuses election of 'defiant' president
Public teachers divided as some continue strike, others return to class
Suicide: Cruel choice for Lebanese unable to feed their children
Sayyed Nasrallah: Hezbollah Supports Sleiman Franjiyeh for Presidency, Resistance Power Protects Lebanon Borders, Fortunes
Hezbollah says it backs Christian ally to become president
Shifts in Lebanon's politics could lead to change or crisis - analysis/Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/March 06/2023

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 06-07/2023
Iran's Khamenei calls girls' poisoning 'unforgivable' after public anger
Iran's judiciary says women will be punished for violating Islamic dress code -IRNA
Iran Activates Air Defense System in Syria
China Believes Full, Effective Compliance Right Way Forward for Iran Nuclear Issue
Russia says it thwarts Ukraine-backed murder plot against nationalist tycoon
Russia's air defence downs three missiles in Belgorod region - governor
U.S. sanctioned 2 Montreal companies for supporting Russian 'war effort'
Fall of Bakhmut Would Not Mean Russia Has Changed Tide of War, Says Pentagon Chief
Estonia's pro-Ukraine prime minister Kallas wins reelection
Russia steps up effort to take elusive prize of Ukraine city
Scholz warns of 'consequences' if China sends arms to Russia
Wagner Chief Says Russian Position at Bakhmut at Risk without Promised Ammunition
In liberated Ukraine city, civilians still pay price of war
Israel President Says Pact on Judicial Overhaul Closer Than Ever
US Defense Secretary Discusses Cooperation in the Middle East

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 06-07/2023
Turkey’s Erdogan must take concrete action on Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood/Sinan Ciddi/Washington Examiner/March 06/2023
Analysis of IAEA Iran Verification and Monitoring Report – February 2023/David Albright/Sarah Burkhard/Spencer Faragasso/Andrea Stricker/ Institute for Science and International Security/March 06/2023
The Palestinian Authority for the Rights of Terrorists!/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/March 06/2023
A War With China Would Be Unlike Anything Americans Faced Before/Ross Babbage/The New York Times/March, 06/2023
A regime in disgrace: poisoning girls, raping protesters, smuggling arms/Baria Alamuddin/Arab news/March 06/2023
Iran’s economic disparity a threat to the regime/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab news/March 06/2023
Islam’s Christian Martyrs through the Ages/Raymond Ibrahim/PJ Media/March 06/2023

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 06-07/2023
Lebanon adopts ‘dollarization’ as currency, economy crumble
BEIRUT (AP)/Mon, March 06, 2023
When Moheidein Bazazo opened his Beirut mini-market in 1986, during some of the fiercest fighting in Lebanon’s civil war, he didn't expect it to thrive. But several years later, he had shelves full of food and needed 12 employees to help him manage a bustling business. Those days are over. Bazazo now mostly works alone, often in the dark to reduce his electric bill. Regular customers are struggling to make ends meet, and as they buy less so does he, leaving some shelves and refrigerators bare. With the Lebanese economy in shambles and its currency in free fall, Bazazo spends much of his time trying to keep up with a fluctuating exchange rate. Businesses like his are increasingly leaning on one of the world’s most reliable assets — the U.S. dollar — as a way to cope with the worst financial crisis in its modern history. “I once lived a comfortable life, and now I’m left with just about $100 after covering the shop’s expenses" at the end of the month, Bazazo said, crunching numbers into a calculator. “Sometimes it feels like you’re working for free.” The Lebanese pound has lost 95% in value since late 2019, and now most restaurants and many stores are demanding to be paid in dollars. The government recently began allowing grocery stores like Bazazo’s to start doing the same. While this “dollarization” aims to ease inflation and stabilize the economy, it also threatens to push more people into poverty and deepen the crisis. That's because few in Lebanon have access to dollars to pay for food and other essentials priced that way. But endemic corruption means political and financial leaders are resisting the alternative to dollarization: long-term reforms to banks and government agencies that would end wasteful spending and jump-start the economy. Other countries like Zimbabwe and Ecuador have turned to the dollar to beat back hyperinflation and other economic woes, with mixed success. Pakistan and Egypt also are struggling with crashing currencies but their economic crises are largely tied to an outside event — Russia's war in Ukraine, which has caused food and energy prices to soar.
Lebanon's woes are much of its own making.
As the country felt the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, a deadly Beirut port explosion in 2020 and Russia’s invasion Ukraine, its central bank simply printed more currency, eroding its value and causing inflation to soar. Three-quarters of Lebanon's 6 million people have fallen into poverty since the 2019 crisis began. Crippling power cuts and medicine shortages have paralyzed much of public life. Currency shortages prompted banks to limit withdrawals, trapping millions of people’s savings. It’s led some in desperation to hold up banks to forcibly take back their money. The damage of the last few years was magnified by decades of economic mismanagement that allowed the government to spend well beyond its means. The head of the country's Central Bank was recently charged with embezzling public funds and other crimes. The pulverized Lebanese pound fluctuates almost hourly. Though officially pegged to the dollar since 1997, the pound's value is dictated now by an opaque black market rate that has become standard for most goods and services. Last month, its value fell from about 64,000 pounds to the dollar to 88,000 on the black market, while the official rate is 15,000. Making things worse for a country reliant on imported food, fuel and other products priced in dollars, the government recently tripled the amount of tax — in Lebanese pounds — that importers must pay on those goods. This will likely lead to more price hikes. For small businesses, it could means selling products at a loss just minutes after stacking them on the shelves. Dollarization could give the impression of greater financial stability, but it also will widen already vast economic inequalities, said Sami Zoughaib, an economist and research manager at Beirut-based think tank the Policy Initiative.
“We have a class that has access to dollars … (and) you have another portion of the population that earns in Lebanese pounds that have now seen their income completely decimated,” Zoughaib said.
The shift to a more dollar-dominated economy happened not by government decree, but by companies and individuals refusing to accept payment in a currency that relentlessly loses value. First, luxury goods and services were priced in dollars for the wealthy, tourists and owners of private generators, who have to pay for imported diesel. Then it was most restaurants. And now grocery stores. Caretaker Economy Minister Amin Salam said the Lebanese pound was “used and abused” over the past three years and that dollarizing grocery stores will bring some stability to fluctuating exchange rates.
As more people and businesses reject the local currency, the dollar gradually becomes the de facto currency. The lack of trust in the Lebanese pound has become irreversible, said Layal Mansour, an economist specializing in financial crises in dollarized countries.
“People are fed up with the fluctuation of the dollar rate, and having to spend lots of time changing it, so practically, on a societal level, it's better to use dollars,” Mansour said. “This is the end of the Lebanese pound as we know it.”Without a strategy to address the economy's underlying problems, the government “is allowing this to happen,’’ said Lawrence White, an economics professor at George Mason University. Dollarization means the Central Bank can’t keep printing currency that fuels inflation, and having a more reliable currency might create more confidence for businesses. But many people could be further squeezed if Beirut officially adopts the greenback as its currency.
Millions in Lebanon who tolerated the dollarization of luxury items may not respond similarly to groceries, whose prices were already surging at some of the highest rates globally. Over 90% of the population earns their income in Lebanese pounds, according to a 2022 survey by the International Labor Organizaton and the Lebanese government's statistics agency. Families that receive money from relatives abroad spend much of it keeping the lights on and covering medical expenses. They would have to be paid in dollars to adequately adjust, which most businesses and employers, especially the Lebanese state, are short on. Public school teachers have been on strike for three months because their salaries barely cover the cost of gasoline to commute. Telecom workers are threatening walkouts because their wages have not been adjusted to the Lebanese pound's falling value. Lebanon is nowhere near implementing the kinds of reforms needed for an International Monetary Fund bailout, such as restructuring banks and inefficient government agencies, reducing corruption, and establishing a credible and transparent exchange-rate system. Zoughaib, the Beirut economist, said he fears the absence of sound policy and economic reforms means that dollarization will likely only deepen poverty, making it even more difficult for families to pay for health care, education and food. Bazazo, the market owner, acknowledges that pricing in dollars will help him manage his finances and cut a small portion of his losses but worries it will drive away some customers. “Let’s see what happens,” Bazazo said, sighing. “They’re already complaining.”

Lebanon Judge Sets March 15 Hearing for Central Bank Chief in Graft Probe
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 6 March, 2023
A Lebanese investigative judge has scheduled a March 15 hearing for Lebanese Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh as part of a cross-border corruption probe into Salameh and close associates, a judicial source said. Judge Charbel Abu Samra took over the case late last month after another judge charged Salameh with embezzlement, illicit enrichment and money laundering. Charges were also filed against his brother, Raja, and an assistant, Marianne Howayek. They all deny the charges against them. Abu Samra on Monday met representatives of three European countries also probing Salameh, with which Lebanon has pledged to cooperate - Germany, France and Luxembourg. He informed them that he had not yet fully studied the contents of the file, comprising four boxes, and that it would take time to do so, the judicial source said. Abu Samra appointed three financial experts to study the file with him, the source added.
The charges against Salameh are the product of an 18-month probe into whether Salameh and his brother, Raja, embezzled more than $300 million from the Central Bank between 2002 and 2015. Judicial authorities in at least five European countries are investigating the Salameh brothers over the same allegations. Salameh, central bank governor since 1993, still enjoys backing from powerful Lebanese leaders. Many judges largely owe their appointments to politicians. He was charged last year over illicit enrichment in a case related to the purchase and rental of Paris apartments, including some to Lebanon's Central Bank.

Judge sets March 15 session for Salameh's interrogation
Naharnet/Monday, 6 March, 2023
First Investigative Judge of Beirut Charbel Abou Samra on Monday scheduled a March 15 session for the interrogation of Central Bank chief Riad Salameh, his brother Raja and his assistant Marianne Hoayek, the National News Agency said. The judge will question them in “the public prosecution’s lawsuit against them on charges of embezzlement, money laundering, illicit enrichment and tax evasion,” NNA added. Salameh categorically denies all accusations against him and has rarely appeared before the judiciary, despite numerous complaints, summonses, investigations and a travel ban issued against him a year ago. Lebanon opened an investigation into Salameh's assets in 2021, after a request for assistance from Switzerland's public prosecutor probing more than $300 million in fund movements by the governor and his brother. Riad Salameh has headed Lebanon's central bank since 1993. Swiss media reported last month that banks in Switzerland are holding a substantial amount of millions of dollars Salameh is accused of embezzling.

Reports: Franjieh seeks votes as Hezbollah bets on Bassil stance
Naharnet/Monday, 6 March, 2023
Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh has asked Hezbollah for a period of one more month in which he hopes to secure a sufficient number of votes for his election as president, informed sources told the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper. A highly informed source meanwhile told the daily that Hezbollah is “betting on lenifying (Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran) Bassil’s stance on Franjieh’s election, based on a list of presidential, political and governmental incentives” to which the Marada chief would commit, accompanied by “guarantees” from Hezbollah. “This was obvious between the lines of (Speaker Nabih) Berri’s latest stances in terms of the continued betting on a change in Bassil’s viewpoint on Franjieh’s election,” the source added.

Bishop Abu Najem starts new tour for Christian consensus over president
Naharnet/Monday, 6 March, 2023
Maronite Archbishop of Antelias Antoine Abu Najem has started a second round of meetings with Christian leaders in an attempt to secure Christian consensus over the presidential file, Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported Monday. Assigned by Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, Abu Najem had started last month an exploratory tour, during which he explored the stances of Christian leaders and their approach toward the presidential crisis, media reports said. Asharq al-Awsat said Monday that the Archbishop had met Lebanese Forces and Free Patriotic Movement leaders Samir Geagea and Jebran Bassil at the end of last week and will meet Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh and Kateb leader Sami Gemayel in the coming hours. During these meetings, Abu Najm is proposing candidates backed by Bkerki to seek consensus on one or two names, the daily said. Sources told the daily that after the second round of meetings is completed and the results are evaluated, al-Rahi might call for a Christian leaders meeting in Bkerki. The sources added that al-Rahi would only call for a meeting once he is sure that the meeting will be fruitful. Meanwhile, Geagea's sources told Asharq al-Awsat that he refuses a Christian quartet meeting but might participate if Bkerki insists while an FPM MP confirmed that Bassil would attend.

Sami Gemayel meets Abu Najem, refuses election of 'defiant' president
Naharnet/Monday, 6 March, 2023
Kateb chief MP Sami Gemayel met Monday with Maronite Archbishop of Antelias Antoine Abu Najem over the presidential crisis. “The meeting was fruitful,” Gemayel said, adding that his party will do its best to prevent the election of a president who adopts a “defiance approach” that would destroy "what is left of Lebanon."“We will not accept to be threatened with void in order to elect their candidate,” Gemayel said. Assigned by Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, Abu Najem had started last month an exploratory tour, during which he explored the stances of Christian leaders and their approach toward the presidential crisis. He had met Lebanese Forces and Free Patriotic Movement leaders Samir Geagea and Jebran Bassil at the end of last week, media reports said, and will meet Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh in the coming hours.

Public teachers divided as some continue strike, others return to class
Naharnet/Monday, 6 March, 2023
Contract teachers rallied Monday in front of the Education Ministry and blocked roads, demanding a further salary increase and higher transport allowances. Other public teachers returned to class, partially ending a two-month strike. Last week, cabinet had approved to give teachers a daily transport allowance that equals 5 liters of gas for four work days for full-time teachers or three work days for contract teachers. Public school teachers had been on strike, demanding an adjustment of their LBP salaries as the Lebanese pound lost more than 95% of its value and the price of gas surged.
They were already underpaid before the onset of the economic crisis two years ago and have since been pushed deeper into poverty. Their salaries in pounds are a fraction of what they used to be due to the currency's rapid devaluation. Many cannot afford to purchase fuel to go to work after the government gradually lifted subsidies causing the price of hydrocarbons to more than quadruple within a few months. After cabinet responded to some of the teachers' demands, some returned to class and others refused to go back to teaching before their demands are met. They said the gas allowances will only be received in April and that their salaries have further lost their value as the LBP fell from about 64,000 pounds to the dollar to 88,000 on the black market last month. On Monday, it traded at 80,000 to the dollar on the street, making things hard in a country reliant on imported food, fuel and other products priced in dollars. Supermarkets last week also started pricing items in dollars, after a government announcement allowed it.

Suicide: Cruel choice for Lebanese unable to feed their children
Najia Houssari/Arab News/March 06, 2023
BEIRUT: At least four Lebanese people have died by suicide in the past week. The population of the country is finding the prevailing economic and social conditions hard to bear, and Diab Audi, a retired warrant officer in the Internal Security Forces, died after suffering a heart attack inside a Lebanese bank, unable to retrieve withheld savings. Lebanon is in the midst of a devastating economic crisis that has plunged more than 80 percent of its population into poverty, according to the UN. Information International, a Beirut-based research consultancy firm, has recently published a study showing a significant rise in registered suicides following a decrease in numbers in 2022.The average number of suicides from 2013 to 2022 was 143, with the highest, 172, recorded in 2019. Preliminary investigations revealed that last week’s figures were exacerbated by adverse economic and living conditions.
Mohammed Ibrahim was found dead on Sunday after reportedly shooting himself in his hometown of Wardaniyeh. His employment involved working on the judges’ mutual fund at the Sidon Palace of Justice, and he was the nephew of financial prosecutor Judge Ali Ibrahim. The previous day, Hussein Al-Abed Mroueh, 40, from the town of Zararia in south Lebanon, was found dead in one of the orchards surrounding his home. It was clear from statements of his acquaintances that he “had constant economic and financial problems and does not work in a specific field.”Mousa Al-Shami, a resident of Jarjouaa, also died by suicide and left a recorded message to a friend that was shared on social media, asking him to take care of his children.
Al-Shami said that he could no longer bear the economic burdens and his difficult situation, adding that he could no longer feed his children. A young man in his 30s strangled his wife and 4-year-old child in the Daraya area in Mount Lebanon governorate in late February, before his death by suicide. He was reportedly unable to pay his debts. Embrace Lebanon, a nongovernmental organization that bids to administer mental health help, has defined suicide as a process involving psychological, social, biological, cultural, and environmental factors, adding it is a summary of an experience of crises, disasters, violence, abuse, chronic pain, illness or loss, and a sense of isolation. It stated that suicide rates are high among vulnerable groups that suffer discrimination, and the strongest risk factor for suicide is a previous suicide attempt. According to a 2022 survey conducted by the Central Administration of Statistics and the International Labor Organization, the collapse of the national currency, and the state’s inability to carry out the reforms required by the international community, has resulted in the percentage of families receiving income from retirement and other social insurance allowances decreasing from 28 percent to 10 percent. The survey further noted that 85 percent of families are unable to survive — even for one month — in the event of losing their sources of income. General Labor Union President Bechara Al-Asmar met Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Monday.
Al-Asmar later said: “The state is looking for revenues, but it should not be at the expense of 90 percent of the population. “Taxes and fees must be reduced at this difficult stage, but in reality the state has increased taxes and fees, and raised the exchange rate on the central bank’s Sayrafa platform to 70,000 Lebanese pounds to the dollar, making employees lose on average 56 percent of the value of their incomes. “All these decisions have not been properly reviewed before implementation.”Al-Asmar added: “Military and civilian retirees have all become poor. Compensation in the public sector is still at the previous official exchange rate of 1,500 Lebanese pounds to the dollar. “Significant irregularities in the pricing of commodities have occurred after the state allowed merchants to dollarize prices, and chaos could soon prevail in markets as Ramadan approaches.”

Sayyed Nasrallah: Hezbollah Supports Sleiman Franjiyeh for Presidency, Resistance Power Protects Lebanon Borders, Fortunes
Al-Manar English Website/Mohammad Salami/March 06/2023
Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah on Monday announced that the Resistance Party supports the nomination of Head of Marada Movement Sleiman Franjiyeh for the presidential elections, stressing that the latter matches all needed candidacy criteria.
Addressing Hezbollah ceremony held to mark the anniversary of the Birth of Imam Sajjad (P) and Abu Fadl Al-Abbas and honor the prisoners as well as the wounded fighters of the Islamic Resistance, Sayyed Nasrallah noted that Hezbollah rejects the presidential void and insists on the two-third quorum for the parliament to convene and elect a new president. Our serious will and the national interest impose electing a new president, according to Sayyed Nasrallah who noted that Hezbollah will remain committed to the two-third parliamentary quorum for the presidential elections.
The first and the second sessions must witness a two-third quorum although the number of votes required for the winning candidate is 65 (out of 128), according to Sayyed Nasrallah, who added that, even if the candidate Hezbollah supports secures the majority of votes, it will insist on the two-third attendance quorum.
Sayyed Nasrallah called for holding a dialogue among the parliamentary blocs if the quorum is not secured to elect a new president, adding that all the parliamentary blocs have the democratic right to boycott the vote. In this regard, Sayyed Nasrallh urged the parliamentary blocs to prepare a list of candidates in order to discuss them in the context of a dialogue. Sayyed Nasrallah pointed out that Hezbollah refuses any foreign intervention in the Lebanese presidential elections to impose or veto any candidate, wondering how some Lebanese parties, who claim to be sovereign, ask the United States to sanction the blocs which do not elect the foreign-backed candidate.
We just accept a foreign assistance to reach a convergence of views in Lebanon, according to Sayyed Nasrallah, who added that Iran and Syria do not interfere in this issue and refer all inquirers to Tehran and Damascus allies in Beirut. Sayyed Nasrallah affirmed that the Lebanese parties must never wait for the regional and international developments to settle the presidential file, stressing that Hezbollah and allies are not waiting for any foreign orders and have the full independence and freedom to elect the candidate they prefer. Hezbollah and allies are not betting on any regional and international developments and settlements, according to Sayyed Nasrallah who maintained that the Iranian nuclear deal as well as Riyadh-Tehran settlement will take a long time to be achieved. His eminence indicated that that Hezbollah remains committed to its presidential choice till the elections, reiterating that the Party wants the new President to just abstain from backstabbing the resistance. Sayyed Nasrallah indicated that his eminence had met with the Free Patriotic Movement Head Gebran Bassil to discuss the presidential file without preconditions, adding that the meeting did not reach any result.
His eminence noted that the Understanding between Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement does not stipulate a full agreement on all the issues, including the presidential elections. Sayyed Nasrallah pointed out that Hezbollah does not accept to be accused of betraying the Free Patriotic Movement, calling for holding joint sessions to discuss the common concerns.
Lebanon Borders with Occupied Palestine
Hezbollah Secretary General highlighted the Zionist enemy’s attempts to advance and violate Lebanon’s southern borders in order to occupy parts of the Lebanese territories, hailing the Lebanese army for confronting the Israeli military units powerfully. Sayyed Nasrallah emphasized that deterrence formula based on the army, people, and resistance will secure the Lebanese rights and borders and prevent the enemy from violating the national sovereignty. Sayyed Nasrallah affirmed that Hezbollah power enables Lebanese army to confront the Israeli enemy and protects Lebanon’s borders and fortunes from any Zionist aggression. Sayyed Nasrallah indicated that the US support is directed strategically to the Zionist entity, warning against any bet on the US policies towards Lebanon. “This deterrence power was made by our people, men, women, children, wounded, prisoners, martyrs and mujahidin.”
Only Iran and Syria supported this deterrence power, according to Sayyed Nasrallah who added that this explains the antagonistic policies against those two countries. Sayyed Nasrallah recalled that, in 1978, the Israeli occupation forces took control of Southern Litani area in 7 days, while that, in 2006, dozens of thousands of Zionist troops failed to achieve any field progress in Southern Lebanon in 33 days. Sayyed Nasrallah reiterated his Karish formula, warning against any procrastination in extracting oil and gas in the Lebanese territorial water. Hezbollah leader denied the claims of some analysts who alleged that his warnings were caused by a certain frustration about the maritime agreement, refuting all the rumors about submitting security guarantees in this regard.
Sayyed Nasrallah asserted that Hezbollah did not aim at gaining the US consent or achieving political gains in Lebanon, indicating that Hezbollah reviews its stances that please the US administration. Sayyed Nasrallah reiterated that the US-brokered agreement on the maritime border demarcation was a major achievement, but that implementation of the pact requires a follow-up. Sayyed Nasrallah noted that the caretaker PM Najib Mikati and the power ministry are assuming their responsibilities regarding the follow up of the maritime agreement, warning again against any procrastination in this regard. Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that Hezbollah may never make concessions regarding the land and maritime borders, adding that the enemies want to eradicate the resistance in order to deprive the country from its protection power. Previously, the enemies used wars and massacres in order to strike the resistance power, according to Sayyed Nasrallah who added that, nowadays, they are resorting the siege and starvation in order to achieve the same target. Resistance supporters will never abandon their strategic choice, Sayyed Nasrallah said, adding that people will not make concessions related to their power and pride.
Occasion
Sayyed Nasrallah indicated that Hezbollah adopted the Birthday of Abu Fadl Al-Abbas (P) as the Wounded Resistance Fighters Day because he symbolizes the injury and sacrifice in Karbala. Birthday of Imam Ali Bin Al-Hussein Al-Sajjad (P) has bee adopted by Hezbollah as the Resistance Prisoners Day because he was the sickened Imam who was imprisoned in Karbala, according to Sayyed Nasrallah who noted that Imam Sajjad (P) remained brave and courageous in face of the tyrants despite all challenges imposed by Yazid. Sayyed Nasrallah indicated that Hezbollah wounded fighters faced the dangers of wars just as Al-Abbas, adding that their pains caused by their injuries comprise a new jihad path for the sake of Allah. Hezbollah Chief said that all the Lebanese must know that the repercussions of the sacrifices of Resistance wounded fighters are still effective. Sayyed Nasrallah noted that the new generation must learn about the Resistance prisoners’ sacrifices as well as the Israeli enemy’s jails in southern Lebanon and occupied Palestine, adding that a large number of Resistance prisoners embraced martyrdom after returning to the battlefields. Sayyed Nasrallah called for supporting the Palestinian resistance and prisoners in face of the Israeli measures, including the approval of the capital punishment, stressing that executing prisoners will let the Palestinians oblige the Zionist enemy to pay a heavy price. Sayyed Nasrallah also indicated that the Israeli attack on the Palestinian town of Huwara reflects the barbaric reality of Zionism.
Hezbollah held the ceremony in various halls across Lebanon as a large number of the Resistance released prisoners, wounded fighters and loyal supporters attended to reiterate allegiance to the jihadi path of Hezbollah.

Hezbollah says it backs Christian ally to become president
BEIRUT (AP)/Mon, March 6, 2023
The leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah said Monday the group backs a former Cabinet minister and strong ally to become Lebanon’s next president.
It was the first time that Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah openly named Sleiman Frangieh as the candidate they support to win the top post in the crisis-hit country. Despite Hezbollah’s support, Frangieh still needs the backing of other blocs — support that could prove hard to get.
Frangieh, a Maronite Christian, does not have the backing of the largest Christian blocs in parliament and many in the Western-backed coalition oppose him because of his alliance with Hezbollah and his close personal friendship with Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Frangieh, 57, and army commander Gen. Joseph Aoun, are the top candidates for president. Hezbollah is believed to oppose the army chief's bid for president because he enjoys backing by the U.S..
Lebanon’s deeply divided parliament has failed to elect a president during 11 sessions held since the term of President Michel Aoun, also a Hezbollah ally, ended in late October.
“The natural candidate that we back in the presidential elections and has the specifications that we take into consideration is minister Sleiman Frangieh,” Nasrallah said in a speech during a rally honoring the group's wounded fighters. He reiterated that Hezbollah doesn’t want a candidate who “stabs the resistance (Hezbollah) in the back.”
Nasrallah said Hezbollah will not accept that foreign countries impose a president on Lebanon and will also not accept a foreign “veto” against any candidate, an apparent reference to Frangieh.
Nasrallah’s announcement came days after Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri also said he backs Frangieh for president. Frangieh has not publicly announced he is running for office.
Despite the support of Hezbollah and Berri’s Amal Movement, the two largest Shiite groups in the country, Frangieh will still need the backing of other parliamentary blocs as no coalition has a majority in the 128-seat legislature. Frangieh said recently that his close alliances with Hezbollah and Assad’s government give him an advantage against other candidates as he can speak with them to make concessions for the good of Lebanon.
According to Lebanon’s power-sharing system, the president must be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the parliament speaker a Shiite Muslim. The parliament and Cabinet seats are equally divided between Christians and Muslims.
Frangieh, the leader of the Marada Movement, hails from a well-known political family from northern Lebanon. His grandfather — the man whose name he carries — was a former Lebanese president. When he was 13, his father, Tony Frangieh, was killed along with his mother and sister in an infamous 1978 massacre perpetrated by rival Christian Maronite forces in the mountain resort of Ehden. In 2018, Frangieh reconciled with Christian leader Samir Geagea who led the raid in Ehden but was seriously wounded and withdrew from the operation. Geagea, whose Lebanese Forces Party has the largest bloc in parliament, is strongly opposed to Frangieh becoming president and vowed to do all he can to prevent him from obtaining the post.

Shifts in Lebanon's politics could lead to change or crisis - analysis
Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/March 06/2023
Lebanon lacks a president because its feuding sectarian parties cannot agree.
Lebanon’s politics continue to be in turmoil. The country lacks a president because its numerous feuding sectarian parties cannot agree. The system has this problem built into it because by agreement Lebanon must have a Christian as president. That means that the Christian politicians and parties, primarily made up of Maronite Christians, compete for support from the other Sunni, Shi’a and Druze parties.
As if this was not complex enough, the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, which only has a handful of seats in parliament, is able to essentially blackmail Lebanon into forcing a president of Hezbollah’s choosing upon Beirut.
This matters because Lebanon is at the crossroads of other issues in the Middle East. The US backed a maritime deal with Israel that could see some exploration for energy resources off the coast. However, there are concerns about what Hezbollah will do and whether companies from Qatar, France and elsewhere will be able to bring out the resources and shore up Beirut’s finances.
Hezbollah rooting for presidential candidate Suleiman Frangieh
Is something going to change? According to a recent opinion piece in Gulf News, the political situation is still deadlocked. “It’s been over months now, and the presidential seat in Lebanon remains vacant. A series of back-to-back elections in parliament have failed to break the gridlock, although the two main contenders, Gibran Bassil and Suleiman Frangieh, are still to make a floor nomination,” the piece noted, adding that Bassil is the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) and son-in-law of former president Michel Aoun. “Frangieh is the grandson of a former president and namesake who is backed by Hezbollah. Although Bassil’s parliamentary bloc is much larger than that of Frangieh (he commands 17 MPs while Frangieh controls only 2), his chances of success are minimal if his former allies in Hezbollah don’t approve his nomination. And there is no indication from Hezbollah that it is going to back Bassil anytime soon, insisting [sic] that its only candidate for president is Frangieh.” Frangieh is head of the Marada movement which has in the past been pro-Syrian and close to Hezbollah and Amal.
Hezbollah still believes that it can gather a 65-vote majority for Frangieh. That’s easier said than done since it currently commands no more than 34 guaranteed votes (17 for Hezbollah and Amal each.
Hezbollah wants to find the 65 votes necessary for Frangieh. According to the article, Bassil and Frangieh could not resolve their differences. Sunni parties are not playing a major role, with Saad Hariri ostensibly in retirement. Hariri’s father was killed by Hezbollah in 2005. The article claimed that the end result will be up to Hezbollah and the Shia Amal movement. The same article noted that army commander Joseph Aoun was a choice that would be supported by France, Saudi Arabia and the Maronite Patriarch. Another candidate for president was Michel Moawwad, who was backed by Samir Geagea.
A recent article by LBC Group in Lebanon noted that “the Saudi position on Frangieh has been heard by visitors to the Saudi ambassador in Lebanon and visitors to the Kingdom before and after the France Quintet meeting based on the fact that the Kingdom, while it will not interfere in the naming process, is still clear about its position on not accepting a candidate affiliated with Hezbollah.” Another article in Arabic in The Independent noted that Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has also come out in support of Frangieh.
This shift in Berri’s posture could seal the deal for Frangieh. An article by Al-Ain media in the Gulf suggests that this is a possibility. This means that the decisions and agreements on a new president could come in the next weeks. However, a commentator told Al-Ain that "most political forces are now afraid that the crisis will continue until May because if it continues, it will lead to the explosion of the country in general." It would appear that if Frangieh advances toward the presidency that this will continue the Hezbollah hold and influence on power. This would block reforms in Lebanon. Hezbollah’s efforts to control the country have continued since 2005 when the Syrian regime was forced to leave Lebanon. This has led the country to bankruptcy and has contributed to its near collapse.
Hezbollah’s shifting alliances and its current problems with its old allies in the Free Patriotic Movement, also show that even Hezbollah cannot hold onto its previous friendships. There are other issues that are afoot; a recent reconciliation between the Gulf and Syria has led to the potential for change in the region. The UAE is open to working with Syria, but it remains to be seen what Saudi Arabia will do. Saudi Arabia has played a key role in Lebanon historically, helping end the civil war in the country that took place from 1976 to 1989. It’s unclear if Saudi Arabia and the Gulf will be keen on working with the Syrian regime and a president of Lebanon who is backed by Hezbollah.
The viewpoint of the US, France and others is that Lebanon needs stability. Stability requires having a president. It also requires Hezbollah to not always have a veto on everything. However, the last decade has shown that Hezbollah’s power continues to grow in Lebanon.
That means current potential shifts in Lebanon could lead to an agreement on a new president, but it could also lead to a crisis. Lebanon is also at a juncture in transition between its intelligence chiefs; Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim is leaving office and it is unclear who will be appointed in his place. Arab News said that “Lebanon is due to appoint a new acting head of its intelligence agency after the highest-ranking candidate was declared fit to take over from its retiring current chief. The medical committee of General Security on Tuesday approved the extension of Brig. Gen. Elias Baissari’s commission for nine months, amid questions over his fitness relating to injuries he suffered in a car bomb attack almost 20 years ago... However, Baissari would assume the position only until the appointment of a new permanent director general when and if a new president can be elected and a national government formed. [Interior Minister Bassam] Mawlawi is currently in Tunis at a meeting of Arab interior ministers.”
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-733379

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 06-07/2023
Iran's Khamenei calls girls' poisoning 'unforgivable' after public anger
Parisa Hafezi/DUBAI (Reuters) /Mon, March 6, 2023
Iran's supreme leader said on Monday that poisoning schoolgirls is an "unforgivable" crime which should be punished by death if deliberate, state TV reported, amid public anger over a wave of suspected attacks in schools. Over 1,000 girls have suffered poisoning since November, according to state media and officials, with some politicians blaming religious groups opposed to girls' education. The poisonings have come at a critical time for Iran's clerical rulers after months of protests since the death of a young woman held by police for flouting hijab rules. "Authorities should seriously pursue the issue of students' poisoning," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted as saying by state TV. "If it is proven deliberate, those perpetrators of this unforgivable crime should be sentenced to capital punishment." The poisonings began in November in the holy Shi'ite Muslim city of Qom and spread to 25 of Iran's 31 provinces, prompting some parents to take children out of school and protest. Authorities have accused the Islamic Republic's "enemies" of using the attacks to undermine the clerical establishment. But suspicions have fallen on hardline groups operating as self-declared guardians of their interpretation of Islam.
'GIRLS PAYING THE PRICE'
In 2014, people took to the streets of the city of Isfahan after a wave of acid attacks, which appeared to be aimed at terrorizing women who violated the strict Islamic dress code. For the first time since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, schoolgirls have been joining the protests that spiralled after Mahsa Amini's death in morality police custody. Some activists have accused the establishment of the poisonings in revenge. "Now the girls of Iran are paying the price for fighting against the compulsory hijab (veil) and have been poisoned by the clerical establishment," tweeted New York-based leading Iranian activist Masih Alinejad. Fearing fresh impetus for protests, authorities have downplayed the poisonings. A judicial probe is underway, though no details of findings have yet been given. At least one boys' school has also been targeted in the city of Boroujerd, state media reported.

Iran's judiciary says women will be punished for violating Islamic dress code -IRNA
DUBAI/Reuters/Mon, March 6, 2023
Women violating the Islamic dress code will be punished, Iran's Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said on Monday according to the official IRNA news agency, reaffirming the law after months of unrest that brought a deadly security crackdown. "Removing one's hijab is equivalent to showing enmity to the Islamic Republic and its values. People who engage in such an abnormal act will be punished," Ejei said. "With the help of the judiciary and executive, authorities will use all available means to deal with the people who cooperate with the enemy and commit this sin that harms public order."
The Sept. 16 death of Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini while in police custody for flouting the dress code triggered nationwide protests that posed one of the toughest challenges to theocratic since its establishment in 1979. An increasingly severe crackdown by security forces has largely stifled the unrest in recent weeks.

Iran Activates Air Defense System in Syria
London - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 6 March, 2023
The Iranian militias have given the green light to activate the air defense system composed of four batteries in Damascus to intercept any upcoming Israeli strikes, reliable sources in Syria said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) revealed that the militias’ leaders were ordered to limit their movement in Syrian territories, fearing Israeli strikes. The Iranian militias exploited the destructive earthquake that hit parts of Syria and the access to humanitarian aid in order to deliver the air defense system to the regime. The cost of the Iranian system is less than that of the Russian S-300 missile system. SOHR added that the Iranian system had passed through the al-Boukamal crossing on the Syrian-Iraqi border. More Iranian missiles are expected and would be placed at the security and military sites in Aleppo, Latakia and Deir Ezzor. Israel targeted several Iranian sites in Syria, where the Iranian militias have been deployed in recent years, to prevent Iran from expanding and to ban the smuggling of weapons to Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Some of the sites are close to Damascus and its civil airport.

China Believes Full, Effective Compliance Right Way Forward for Iran Nuclear Issue
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 6 March, 2023
China believes full and effective compliance is the right way forward for the Iranian nuclear issue, the Chinese foreign ministry said at a regular news briefing on Monday. "The US should make a political decision as soon as possible to work for outcomes from the talks," said spokesperson Mao Ning when answering a question on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran issuing a joint statement on nuclear cooperation.

Russia says it thwarts Ukraine-backed murder plot against nationalist tycoon
LONDON, March 6 (Reuters)/Mon, March 6, 2023
Russia's FSB security service said on Monday it had thwarted a Ukraine-backed car bomb attack against a prominent nationalist businessman who has been a cheerleader for Moscow's war in Ukraine. The FSB, Russia's main domestic intelligence agency, said it had intervened to stop the plot, which it said involved attaching a remote-controlled homemade bomb to the underside of a car used by Russian tycoon Konstantin Malofeyev. Russia's Zvezda TV channel shared a video from the FSB that appeared to show a man approaching a parked car and momentarily reaching under it. It later published a video of a robot appearing to remove an object from under a car. Reuters was not able to verify the videos. In a statement, the FSB accused the Ukrainian security services of being behind the assassination attempt which it said had been organised on their behalf by Ukraine-based Russian far-right activist Denis Kapustin. It said a criminal case had been launched against Kapustin for alleged terrorist offences and illicit trafficking in explosives. Kapustin, also known as Denis Nikitin, is a former mixed martial arts fighter. He referred a Reuters request for comment to his superiors in the Russian Volunteer Corps, the group that claimed responsibility for last week's incursion into Russia's southern Bryansk region from Ukraine in which he was also involved. His commander said he had no immediate comment. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. The FSB said it had also thwarted an attempt by Kapustin to commit a sabotage attack on an oil and gas facility in Russia's Volgograd region last year. Malofeyev, the target of the alleged murder plot, is a supporter of President Vladimir Putin who owns a conservative TV channel that promotes nationalist views and strongly supports Russia's war in Ukraine. Malofeyev said on his Telegram channel that he was fine and that nobody had been hurt in the attempt on his life, which he said would not alter what he called his "patriotic position." "I have no personal hatred even for those people who want me dead," he said. "But as many of our saints have said, one must forgive one's personal enemies and crush the enemies of the Fatherland. So we will fight against you until our victory. And nothing will stop us." The FSB said the plot against Malofeyev used the same methods employed last summer to murder Darya Dugina, the daughter of a prominent nationalist ideologue, in a car bomb attack outside Moscow which it blamed on Kyiv. Ukraine denied involvement in Dugina's murder.

Russia's air defence downs three missiles in Belgorod region - governor
Reuters/Sun, March 5, 2023 at 11:52 p.m. EST
At least one person was wounded in the southern Russian region of Belgorod on Monday after Russian forces shot down three missiles, the governor of the region bordering Ukraine said. The falling debris had also brought down some power lines near the town of Novy Oskol but the full scope of the damage was not immediately known, the governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said on the Telegram messaging app. "It's known about one wounded, a man with shrapnel wounds to his hand," Gladkov said. He did not say who he thought had fired the missiles but in the past he has accused Ukrainian forces on the other side of the nearby border of similar attacks. Belgorod borders Ukraine's Kharkiv region and has repeatedly come under fire since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine a year ago. Ukraine almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks inside Russia and on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine.

U.S. sanctioned 2 Montreal companies for supporting Russian 'war effort'
CBC/Mon, March 6, 2023 at 8:54 a.m. EST
When the United States and other allies of Ukraine marked the one-year anniversary of Russia's invasion by announcing a new wave of sanctions against Vladimir Putin's regime, two Canadian companies were among 86 new entities targeted by the U.S. Department of Commerce for "a variety of reasons related to their activities in support of Russia's defense-industrial sector and war effort."The Canada Border Services Agency has now revealed that these two companies were identified as part of a "global effort" that now includes U.S. officials being virtually embedded in Canada's inspection system.
CPUNTO Inc. and Electronic Network Inc. were listed for "acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States." They're now subject to U.S. export restrictions, effectively cutting off their access to certain goods unless the companies obtain a specific licence from U.S. authorities.
The Commerce Department listing didn't specify what these companies shipped or attempted to ship that caught American attention, making it unclear what kind of business they were engaged in to trigger this action. Electronics wholesalers and distributors are under increasing global scrutiny. Certain components now in short supply, such as semiconductors, may not originally have been intended for defence industries but could now be re-purposed for military use. U.S. officials have become increasingly serious about monitoring trade, including not only direct shipments in and out of the U.S. but goods that are "trans-shipped" — passing through one or more third-party countries on the way to their eventual destination.
Why didn't Canada step in first?
While most of the entities added by the U.S. on Feb. 24 are from Russia, five are from China, and three were based in the European Union, as well as the two Canadian firms. The U.S. said "several" of the newly listed entities were subsidiaries of firms based in China and Russia. The Commerce Department release said these listings were not an "action against the countries in which the entities are located or registered, or the governments of those countries." But it raises the question of why, if Montreal companies are engaged in trade that raises security concerns, the Canadian government didn't step in first.
CBC News asked the Canada Border Services Agency how it was made aware of this listing and why Canada hadn't taken action of its own to shut down this trade. A week after the inquiry was first made, spokesperson Maria Ladouceur explained that the CBSA's Counter Proliferation Operations Section now has officers from the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) virtually embedded alongside its front-line officers responsible for inspecting incoming and outgoing shipments. She said Canadian officials work with partners on "a daily basis to identify efforts to ship restricted goods and technologies to Russia via third countries." In the year since the start of the war in Ukraine, CBSA officers have reviewed more than 500 shipments with a declared end destination of Russia, she said. Of those, several dozen have been referred for in-depth examinations, resulting in:
Seven administrative monetary penalties levied against exporters.
Eight shipments recommended for seizure.
Three shipments being withdrawn.
Ladouceur did not specify if these two firms were involved in any of these enforcement actions. Canadian officers, she said, contributed to the "global effort" that led to the two Montreal-area electronics distributors being added to the U.S. sanctions list. No additional information was offered as to what restricted shipments were identified or what information was shared in this joint process. Alexander Yermukov, a director at CPUNTO Inc., told CBC News his firm takes this matter "very seriously, as we have always been acting in good faith without intention to defraud, deceive or in any way act maliciously. "We intend to engage further to address the concerns but cannot comment on any specifics at this point," Yermukov said. A representative of the second firm, Electronic Networks Inc., was unwilling to speak to CBC News on the record.
Sanctions prohibit some electronics
Canada's sanctions prohibit the export of any good that could be used for the manufacture of weapons to Russia and also prohibit the export of certain listed technologies such as electronics, computers, telecommunications systems, sensors and lasers, navigation and avionics. On the one-year anniversary of the invasion, it added certain chemical elements for use in electronics to this list, but that move may have been mostly symbolic, as Canada hasn't exported any of that type of goods to Russia since 2019. A year ago, Canada stopped issuing export permits for controlled (restricted) goods bound for Russia and cancelled all existing permits, a move Canadian officials touted as effectively shutting down some $700 million worth of trade. James Emmanuel Wanki, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada, confirmed earlier last week that his department "is aware" these two companies were added to the U.S. sanctions regime against Russia.

Fall of Bakhmut Would Not Mean Russia Has Changed Tide of War, Says Pentagon Chief
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 6 March, 2023
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Monday that the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut was of more symbolic than operational importance, and its fall would not necessarily mean that Moscow had regained the initiative in the war. The battle for Bakhmut has raged for seven months. A Russian victory in the city, which had a pre-war population of about 70,000 but has now been blasted to ruins, would give Moscow the first major prize in a costly winter offensive. "I think it is more of a symbolic value than it is strategic and operational value," Austin told reporters while visiting Jordan. "The fall of Bakhmut won't necessarily mean that the Russians have changed the tide of this fight," he said, adding that he would not predict whether or when Bakhmut might fall. Russian artillery have been pounding the last routes out of the city, aiming to complete its encirclement, but the founder of the Wagner mercenary force leading the assault has said his troops are being deprived of ammunition by Moscow. Austin said that if Ukrainian forces decided to reposition west of Bakhmut, he would not view that as a strategic setback. Wagner often appears to operate autonomously from the regular army, or even in competition with it - and in a video published over the weekend, Prigozhin complained that the ammunition that Moscow had promised it had not been delivered. Prigozhin regularly criticizes the military hierarchy and last month accused Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and others of "treason" for withholding munitions. Austin alluded to differences between Wagner and the military, saying: "I think the fissures are there ... "I would say the Wagner forces have been a bit more effective than the Russian forces ... Having said that, we have not seen exemplary performance from Russian forces."

Estonia's pro-Ukraine prime minister Kallas wins reelection
TALLINN, Estonia (AP)/Mon, March 6, 2023
The center-right Reform Party of Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, one of Europe’s most outspoken supporters of Ukraine, overwhelmingly won the Baltic country’s general election, while a far-right populist challenger lost seats in a vote that focused on national security and the economy. Preliminary returns from a completed ballot count showed the Reform Party, the senior partner in the outgoing three-party coalition government, received 31.2% of the vote — the biggest share in Sunday's election. That translates into 37 seats at Estonia's 101-seat Parliament, or Riigikogu, an increase of three seats from the 2019 election. “This result, which is not final yet, will give us a strong mandate to put together a good government,” Kallas told her party colleagues and jubilant supporters at a hotel in the capital, Tallinn. Kallas, prime minister since 2021, faced a challenge from the far-right populist EKRE party, which seeks to limit the Baltic nation’s exposure to Russia's war in Ukraine, and blames the current government for Estonia’s high inflation rate. EKRE took second place with 16.1% of votes and 17 seats in the legislature, a decrease of two seats compared to four years ago. The Center Party, which is traditionally favored by Estonia's sizable ethnic Russian minority, was third with 15.3% of the vote. The biggest surprise of the election, where more than 900,000 people were eligible to vote, was the emergence of Eesti 200, a small liberal centrist party, which won 14% of the vote.National security in the wake of neighboring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and socio-economic issues, particularly the rising cost of living, were the main campaign themes of the election. Preliminary results suggested six parties passed the 5% threshold of support needed to be in parliament. Voter turnout was 63.7%, a rate that is on par with the previous election, according to initial information.

Russia steps up effort to take elusive prize of Ukraine city
Associated Press)/Mon, March 6, 2023
The fate of Bakhmut appeared to be hanging in the balance Monday, as Russian forces continued to encroach on the devastated eastern Ukrainian city but its defenders still denied the Kremlin the prize it has sought for six months at the cost of thousands of lives. Intense Russian shelling targeted the Donetsk region city and nearby villages as Moscow deployed more resources there in an apparent bid to finish off Bakhmut's resistance, according to local officials. "Civilians are fleeing the region to escape Russian shelling continuing round the clock as additional Russian troops and weapons are being deployed there," Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said. Russian forces that invaded Ukraine just over a year ago have been bearing down on Bakhmut for months, putting Kyiv's troops on the defensive but unable to deliver a knockout blow.
More broadly, Russia continues to experience difficulty generating battlefield momentum. Moscow's full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022 soon stalled and then was pushed back by a Ukraine counteroffensive. Over the bitterly cold winter months, the fighting has largely been deadlocked. Bakhmut doesn't have any major strategic value, and analysts say its possible fall is unlikely to bring a turning point in the conflict. Its importance has become psychological — for Russian President Vladimir Putin, a victory there will finally deliver some good news from the battlefield, while for Kyiv the display of grit and defiance reinforces a message that Ukraine was holding on after a year of brutal attacks to cement support among its Western allies.
Even so, some analysts questioned the wisdom of the Ukrainian defenders holding out much longer, with others suggesting a tactical withdrawal may already be underway.
Michael Kofman, the director of Russia studies at the CAN think tank in Arlington, Virginia, said that Ukraine's defense of Bakhmut has been effective because it has drained the Russian war effort, but that Kyiv should now look ahead.
"I think the tenacious defense of Bakhmut achieved a great deal, expending Russian manpower and ammunition," Kofman tweeted late Sunday. "But strategies can reach points of diminishing returns, and given Ukraine is trying to husband resources for an offensive, it could impede the success of a more important operation."The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, noted that urban warfare favors the defender but considered that the smartest option now for Kyiv may be to withdraw to positions that are easier to defend. In recent days, Ukrainian units destroyed two key bridges just outside Bakhmut, including one linking it to the nearby hilltop town of Chasiv Yar along the last remaining Ukrainian resupply route, according to U.K. military intelligence officials and other Western analysts. Demolishing the bridges could be part of efforts to slow down the Russian offensive if Ukrainian forces start pulling back from the city. "Ukrainian forces are unlikely to withdraw from Bakhmut all at once and may pursue a gradual fighting withdrawal to exhaust Russian forces through continued urban warfare," the ISW said in an assessment published late Sunday. Putin's stated ambition is to seize full control of the four provinces, including Donetsk, that Moscow illegally annexed last fall. Russia controls about half of Donetsk province, and to take the remaining half of that province its forces must go through Bakhmut. The city is the only approach to bigger Ukrainian-held cities since Ukrainian troops took back Izium in Kharkiv province during a counteroffensive last September.
But taking at least six months to conquer Bakhmut, which had a prewar population of 80,000 and was once a popular vacation destination, speaks poorly of the Russian military's offensive capabilities and may not bode well for the rest of its campaign.
"Russian forces currently do not have the manpower and equipment necessary to sustain offensive operations at scale for a renewed offensive toward (the nearby towns of) Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, let alone for a years-long campaign to capture all of Donetsk Oblast," the ISW said. Bakhmut has taken on almost mythic importance to its defenders. It has become like Mariupol — the port city in the same province that Russia captured after an 82-day siege that eventually came down to a mammoth steel mill where determined Ukrainian fighters held out along with civilians. Moscow looked to cement its rule in the areas it has occupied and annexed. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu traveled to Mariupol and toured some of the city's rebuilt infrastructure, the Defense Ministry reported Monday.
Shoigu was shown a newly built hospital, a rescue center of the Emergency Ministry and residential buildings, the ministry said. Meanwhile, Russian forces overnight attacked central and eastern regions of Ukraine with Iranian-made Shahed drones, the spokesman of Ukraine's Air Forces, Yurii Ihnat, told Ukrainian media on Monday. Out of 15 drones launched by Russia, 13 were shot down, Ihnat said. It wasn't immediately clear if the attack caused any damage.
Also, Russia's Federal Security Service, or the FSB, claimed Monday that it thwarted an attempt to assassinate nationalist businessman Konstantin Malofeyev. It claimed the effort was a plot by the Ukrainian security services and the Russian Volunteer Corps, a group that claims to be part of Ukraine's armed forces. According to the FSB, the Russian Volunteer Corps' leader, Denis Kapustin, was the mastermind behind the alleged assassination attempt, and the plan was to install an explosive device under Malofeyev's car. No details were given as to how exactly or at what stage the FSB intervened. Footage released by the service showed a man meddling with a car purported to be Malofeyev's, and then a robot removing an object from under a car at a parking lot. Malofeyev is a media baron and the owner of the ultra-conservative Tsargrad TV who has supported Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine and has trumpeted Moscow's invasion as a "holy war." He has been sanctioned by the U.S.

Scholz warns of 'consequences' if China sends arms to Russia
Associated Press/Mon, March 6, 2023
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says there would be "consequences" if China sent weapons to Russia for Moscow's war in Ukraine, but he's fairly optimistic that Beijing will refrain from doing so. Scholz's comments came in an interview with CNN that aired Sunday, two days after he met U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington. U.S. officials have warned recently that China could step off the sidelines and begin providing arms and ammunition to Moscow. Ahead of his trip, Scholz had urged Beijing to refrain from sending weapons and instead use its influence to press Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine. Asked by CNN if he could imagine sanctioning China if it did aid Russia, Scholz replied: "I think it would have consequences, but we are now in a stage where we are making clear that this should not happen, and I'm relatively optimistic that we will be successful with our request in this case, but we will have to look at (it) and we have to be very, very cautious."He didn't elaborate on the nature of the consequences. Germany has Europe's biggest economy, and China has been its single biggest trading partner in recent years. Back in Germany on Sunday, Scholz was asked after his Cabinet met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen whether he had received concrete evidence from the U.S. that China was considering weapons deliveries and whether he would back sanctions against Beijing if it helped arm Russia. "We all agree that there must be no weapons deliveries, and the Chinese government has stated that it wouldn't deliver any," the chancellor replied. "That is what we are demanding and we are watching it."He didn't address the sanctions question. Von der Leyen said that "we have no evidence for this so far, but we must observe it every day." She said that whether the European Union would sanction China for giving Russia military aid "is a hypothetical question that can only be answered if it were to become reality and fact."

Wagner Chief Says Russian Position at Bakhmut at Risk without Promised Ammunition
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 6 March, 2023
The head of Russia's Wagner mercenary force warned that Russia's position around the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut was in peril unless his troops got ammunition, the latest sign of tension between the Kremlin and the private militia chief. Ukrainian military officials and analysts also reported leaders of Russia's 155th Brigade fighting near the town of Vuhledar, south of Bakhmut, were resisting orders to attack after sustaining severe losses in attempts to capture it. For its part, the Russian Defense Ministry on Sunday said Russian forces had hit a command center of the Ukrainian Azov Regiment in southeastern Zaporizhzhia region. The ministry did not elaborate on the attack. Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield accounts. Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said Russia's front lines near Bakhmut could collapse if his forces did not receive the ammunition promised by Moscow in February. "For now, we are trying to figure out the reason: is it just ordinary bureaucracy or a betrayal," Prigozhin, referring to the absence of ammunition, said in his press service Telegram channel on Sunday. The mercenary chief regularly criticizes Russia's defense chiefs and top generals. Last month, he accused Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and others of "treason" for withholding supplies of munitions to his men. In a nearly four-minute video published on the Wagner Orchestra Telegram channel on Saturday, Prigozhin said his troops were worried that the government wanted to set them up as possible scapegoats if Russia lost the war. "If Wagner retreats from Bakhmut now, the whole front will collapse," Prigozhin said. "The situation will not be sweet for all military formations protecting Russian interests."
'Defense is holding'
A Russian victory in Bakhmut, with a pre-war population of about 70,000, would give it the first major prize in a costly winter offensive, after it called up hundreds of thousands of reservists last year. Russia says it would be a stepping stone to completing the capture of the Donbas industrial region, one of its most important objectives. Volodymyr Nazarenko, a commander of Ukrainian troops in Bakhmut, said that there had been no order to retreat and "the defense is holding" in grim conditions. "The situation in Bakhmut and around it is very much hell-like, as it is on the entire eastern front," Nazarenko said in a video posted on Telegram. Ukraine's military said early on Monday its forces had repelled 95 Russian attacks in the Bakhmut area over the previous day. "The situation in Bakhmut can be described as critical," Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said in a video commentary.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine on a "special military operation" just over a year ago. Since then, tens of thousands of people have been killed, millions have fled and cities have been reduced to rubble but Ukrainian forces, with the help of Western weapons, have limited Russian advances to the east and south. To the north of Bakhmut, Russian troops advanced towards the town of Bilohorivka, just inside the Luhansk region, and shelled several settlements in the direction of Kupiansk and Lyman, the Ukrainian military said. To the south, the Ukrainian military said Russian forces made preparations for an offensive in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, shelling dozens of towns and villages including the city of Kherson, causing civilian casualties. A woman and two children were killed by Russian mortar bombs in a village in Kherson region, the head of Ukraine's presidential office said.
Ukraine's air force spokesperson, Yuriy Ihnat, said 13 kamikaze drones had been shot down on Sunday night. The governor of Russia's Belgorod region bordering Ukraine said one person was wounded by falling debris on Monday after Russian forces shot down three missiles near the town of Novy Oskol.
Belgorod borders Ukraine's Kharkiv region and has repeatedly come under fire since the beginning of Russia's invasion. Ukraine almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks inside Russia.
'Refusing to proceed'
Near Vuhledar, southwest of the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk, Ukraine said senior officers of Russia's 155th Brigade, which Kyiv says suffered heavy recent losses, were refusing to obey orders to attack. "The leaders of the brigade and senior officers are refusing to proceed with a new senseless attack as demanded by their unskilled commanders - to storm well-defended Ukrainian positions with little protection or preparation," Ukraine's military said in a statement. Military analyst Zhdanov said two "Cossack" Russian units known as Steppe and Tiger had expressed frustration with their commanders and refused to take part in any new offensive on the hilltop town.Reuters could not immediately verify the reports. Russian Defense Minister Shoigu is on a rare visit to his forces in Ukraine, awarding medals and meeting commanders on the weekend. On Monday, he visited the eastern city of Mariupol, captured by Russian forces last year after a months-long siege.

In liberated Ukraine city, civilians still pay price of war
IZIUM, Ukraine (AP)/Mon, March 6, 2023
— In this war-scarred city in Ukraine's northeast, residents scrutinize every step for land mines. Behind closed doors, survivors wait in agony for the bodies of loved ones to be identified. The hunt for collaborators of the not-so-long ago Russian occupation poisons tightly-knit communities. This is life in Izium, a city on the Donets River in the Kharkiv region that was retaken by Ukrainian forces in September, but still suffers the legacy of six months of Russian occupation.`The brutality of the Russian invasion in this one-time strategic supply hub for Russian troops counts among the most horrific of the war, which entered its second year last month. Ukrainian civilians were tortured, disappeared and were arbitrarily detained. Mass graves with hundreds of bodies have been discovered and entire neighborhoods were destroyed in the fighting. Izium is a gruesome reminder of the human cost of the war. Six months after it was liberated, residents say they continue to pay the price. Large red signs warning “MINES” rest against a tree between a church and the city’s main hospital, which is still functioning despite heavy Russian bombardment. In this city, everyone has a mine story: Either they stepped on one and lost a limb or know someone who did. The mines are discovered daily, concealed along riverbanks, on roads, in fields, on the tops of roofs, in trees. Of particular concern are anti-infantry high-explosive mines, known as petal mines. Small and inconspicuous, they are widespread in the city. Human Rights Watch has documented that Moscow has used at least eight types of anti-personnel mines, prohibited by the Geneva Conventions, throughout eastern Ukraine. In a January report, the rights monitor also called on Kyiv to investigate the Ukrainian military’s apparent use of thousands of banned petal mines in Izium. “No one can say now the total percentage of territory in Kharkiv that is mined,” said Oleksandr Filchakov, the region’s chief prosecutor. “We are finding them everywhere.”Most residents are careful, keeping to known paths. But even then, they are not safe. “We have an average of one person a week with wounds” from mines, Dr. Yurii Kuzentsov said. “I don’t know when I will ever go to the river or the forest again, even if our lives are restored, because, as a medical professional, I have seen the consequences.”One patient stepped on mines twice: First in June when he lost part of his heel and the second time in October when he lost the entire foot.
Most of Kuzentsov’s patients said they had been cautious. “They were sure this would never happen to them,” he said. Oleksandr Rabenko, 66, stepped on a petal mine 200 meters from his house while walking down a familiar path to the river to fetch water.
His son, Eduard, had de-mined a narrow path with a shovel. Rabenko had walked down it several times, up until Dec. 4, when he lost his right foot while clearing some sticks.
“I still don’t know how it got there, maybe it was the snow melting, or the river carried it,” he said. “I thought it was safe.”
Rabenko still feels excruciating pain from the foot that is no longer there. “The doctor said it will take months for my brain to grasp what happened,” he said. Halyna Zhyharova, 71, knows exactly what happened to her family of eight. A bomb struck her son Oleksandr’s home last March, killing 52 people sheltering inside the basement. They included eight of Zhyharova’s relatives — her son and his entire family, including two daughters. Seven relatives' bodies were exhumed in September in a severe state of decay. It took months to identify them, she said. Now she is waiting for just one more identification — of her granddaughter. Of the 451 bodies exhumed in Izium, including nearly 440 found in mass graves, 125 have still not been identified, said Serhii Bolvinov, the head of the Investigations Department of Kharkiv’s National Police. Some are so decomposed it’s difficult to extract a DNA sample, he said. Other times, authorities are unable to find a DNA match among relatives. The painstaking work can take months. Zhyharova hopes her granddaughter’s remains will be identified soon so she can finally lay her family to rest. “I’ll bury them, put gravestones,” she said. “After that, what to do? Live on.”The scale of destruction in Izium, with a prewar population of 50,000, is breathtaking. Ukrainian officials estimate 70% to 80% of residential buildings were destroyed. Many bear black scorch marks, punctured roofs and have boarded-up windows.
Slowly, residents are returning, horrified to discover their homes uninhabitable or their possessions stolen. They seethe with anger, knowing the Russian advance into Izium was made possible by the help of local collaborators who supported Moscow.
“There were cases in the beginning of the war when collaborators led Russian armed forces units through secret routes and led them to the flanks and rears of our units,” said Brig. Gen. Dmytro Krasylnykov, commander of the joint forces in the Kharkiv region. “This happened in Izium.”“Many of our soldiers died because of this, and we were forced to leave Izium for a while, and now we see what the city has turned into,” he said. In the village of Kamyanka near Izium, every house bears the scars of war. Twenty families have returned and many have directed their venom at Vasily Hrushka, the one who remained. He has become the village pariah. “They say I was a collaborator, a traitor,” the 65-year-old said. “I did nothing wrong.”Hrushka says he stayed in the village while Russians overtook it, because he didn’t want to abandon his cows and three calves, fearing they would die in his absence. He sent his family away and took refuge in the cellar.
Russian soldiers knocked on the door, asked him if any Ukrainian servicemen lived in the house. When he replied no, they sprayed the place with bullets just to make sure. Later, they came by with an offering of canned food. He gave them milk. Once they asked him if he had any alcohol.
Residents saw this as a sign of treason. They asked why he didn’t do more to help Ukrainian forces by finding a way to give away Russian positions. But Hrushka said there was no way to do that — the Russian soldiers destroyed his phone lines. “I was living in madness,” he said, “I did what I did to survive.”He was called in for questioning by the SBU, Ukraine’s security service. They said they heard rumors he was living the life of a chief in Kamyanka. “I was the chief only of my own home,” he told them. They let him go. In November, his fortunes took another turn.
Foraging for firewood as temperatures dropped, he stepped on a petal mine and lost his left foot.

Israel President Says Pact on Judicial Overhaul Closer Than Ever
Alisa Odenheimer/Bloomberg/Mon, March 6, 2023
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said a compromise is within reach in the dispute over the government’s controversial judicial overhaul plan after what he described as behind-the-scenes agreements on most of the issues. “We are closer than ever to the possibility of an agreed outline,” Herzog said on Monday. Speaking to local council leaders, he called on them to help influence the national leadership to reach an agreement. Israeli Twin Crises Split Society, Netanyahu Pushes Ahead. The government’s proposals include transferring the final say on the appointment of new judges from sitting justices to lawmakers as well as allowing parliament to overrule high court decisions. Proponents say the changes are needed to balance out the three branches of government, arguing that the supreme court has become overly activist. They also argue that the makeup of the court doesn’t reflect Israeli society. Tens of thousands of Israelis have demonstrated for weeks against the legislative push, warning it could undermine the democracy and threaten civil rights.

US Defense Secretary Discusses Cooperation in the Middle East
Cairo - Fathia al-Dakhakhni/Asharq Al Awsat/March 06/2023
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was in Jordan on Monday as part of his visit to three Middle Eastern countries to reinforce partnerships with the regional states. Austin arrived on Sunday in Amman and is scheduled to later visit Egypt and Israel. “The enduring and strategic partnership between the United States and Jordan is strong. While here, I look forward to collaborating on shared interests that will deliver positive outcomes for both nations,” he said in a tweet. He wrote on Twitter before his departure that he would meet key leaders and "reaffirm the US commitment to regional stability and advancing the shared interests of our allies and partners." The US Defense Department said ahead of the visit that discussions would focus on the growing threat Iran poses to regional stability, and on advancing multilateral security cooperation with integrated air and missile defenses, Reuters reported. Central to discussion will be the "full constellation of Iran-associated threats," a senior defense official was quoted as saying on the Pentagon's official site ahead of the visit. "Those threats include Iran's arming, training, and funding of violent proxy groups, aggression at sea, cyber threats, its ballistic missile program, and drone attacks," he added. "Secretary Austin will convey enduring US commitment to the Middle East and provide reassurance to our partners that the United States remains committed to supporting their defense and increasing and strengthening the strategic partnerships with each of these countries," said US officials. "He (Austin) will also be quite frank with Israeli leaders about his concerns regarding the cycle of violence in the West Bank and consult on what steps Israeli leaders can take to meaningfully restore calm before the upcoming holidays," Reuters quoted the American officials as saying. Tarek Fahmy, a political science professor at Cairo University, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the visit is part of Washington’s keenness on communicating with its allies on the latest developments, mainly on Iran. Fahmy said that the talks would cover the security arrangements in the region and the American attempts to form a regional alliance, which were showcased at the US-Saudi Summit but faced some reservations. Gamal Bayoumi, the former assistant foreign minister of Egypt, told Asharq Al-Awsat that Washington seeks to form an Arab coalition against Iran. Some Arab countries have reservations about this step and consider Israel the main enemy in the region. The Jeddah Security and Development Summit was held in July in Saudi Arabia. The leaders taking part in the Summit stressed their joint vision for a peaceful and prosperous Middle East. They stressed the need to jointly confront challenges and commit to principles of good neighborliness, mutual respect, the sovereignty of others, and regional security. News had circulated ahead of the Summit about an American proposal to form an “Arab NATO” to face Iran. But the proposal “wasn’t widely welcomed” during the Summit.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 06-07/2023
Turkey’s Erdogan must take concrete action on Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood
Sinan Ciddi/Washington Examiner/March 06/2023
Prior to the devastating earthquakes that struck Turkey in early February, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was attempting to pull off several foreign policy magic tricks ahead of the country’s May 14 elections. This involved resetting ties with Israel and a number of Arab countries, notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Until recently, Ankara had difficult ties with leaders of the Arab world. The need to mend fences became an imperative, owing to Erdogan’s increasingly desperate need to stabilize the national currency (the lira) by procuring funding from abroad.
To that end, Erdogan quickly changed tune.
The UAE, whom he’d accused of backing Turkey’s failed 2016 coup, quickly became the focus of his newfound affections. This resulted in $10 billion worth of investment. Positive overtures were also made to Saudi Arabia, which Erdogan had previously sought to weaken by drawing attention to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi on Turkish soil. Erdogan handed over all case materials and evidence pertaining to the investigation to Saudi authorities, thus ending his moral crusade. Erdogan also paid a personal visit to President Sisi of Egypt, whom he had personally called a dictator. That followed Sisi’s power grab from the Muslim Brotherhood — a movement Erdogan has long championed. With Israel, Erdogan reversed course to reestablish diplomatic ties. This was likely to entice the pro-Israel lobby in Washington, which Turkey hopes will help Ankara acquire new F-16 fighter jets.
Yet, despite Erdogan’s positive overtures, none of the powers in question likely perceives this as anything more than short-term opportunism.
For one thing, Ankara has done virtually nothing to address issues that are of concern to Arab powers: namely, Erdogan’s patronage of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Token gestures such as closing down an MB-affiliated television station in Turkey have been overshadowed by Erdogan’s hosting of the group in Ankara. The same is true of Hamas. Ankara refuses to designate Hamas as a terrorist organization and continues to allow the organization to exist in Turkey. Ismail Haniyeh, a top Hamas leader residing in Turkey, and his son have both been given Turkish passports. It is likely that Erdogan wants to keep the MB and Hamas in his back pocket, mainly as a means of having leverage over Israel and the Arab powers as they continue to develop bilateral ties.
In post-earthquake Turkey, however, Erdogan may not be able to stall on these two issues. Many countries, including Israel, dispatched rescue teams and aid to Turkey. Continuing to withhold decisive action against the MB and Hamas inside of Turkey will be a hard pill for Israel to swallow. Moreover, Turkey will need more foreign capital if it is to successfully overcome the economic challenge born out of the earthquakes, which by some estimates could cost the country close to $45 billion. If he wants to open regional doors for direct investment into Turkey, Erdogan will have to back positive sentiment with action.
Erdogan still has a little time to address these issues, owing to the possibility of a leadership change in Turkey following the May 14 elections. Still, the president is facing his greatest political uphill challenge. The earthquakes have angered citizens throughout Turkey. There is an emerging perception that Erdogan’s time may be over, as he has no credible answers as to how he’s going to heal the country’s physical, economic, and political wounds. The visual of collapsed buildings and devastated cities may be a metaphorical representation of his own rule.
If this is the case, Turkey’s new government will have a unique opportunity to mend ties in a substantive manner to regional powers’ satisfaction. Rather than make demands of Ankara, Israel and the Arab world should wait until the elections pass to see who’s in charge.
*Sinan Ciddi is a nonresident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where he contributes to FDD’s Turkey Program and Center on Military and Political Power. Follow Sinan on Twitter @SinanCiddi. FDD is a nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Analysis of IAEA Iran Verification and Monitoring Report – February 2023
David Albright/Sarah Burkhard/Spencer Faragasso/Andrea Stricker/ Institute for Science and International Security/March 06/2023
Excerpt
This report summarizes and assesses information in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) quarterly report for February 28, 2023, Verification and monitoring in the Islamic Republic of Iran in light of United Nations Security Council resolution 2231 (2015), including Iran’s compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
FINDINGS
Iran can now break out and produce enough weapon-grade for a nuclear weapon in 12 days, using only three advanced centrifuge cascades and half of its existing stock of 60 percent enriched uranium. This breakout could be difficult for inspectors to detect promptly, if Iran took steps to delay inspectors’ access.
Using its remaining stock of 60 percent enriched uranium and its stock of near 20 percent enriched uranium, Iran could produce enough weapon-grade uranium for an additional four nuclear weapons in a month. During the next two months, Iran could produce two more weapons’ worth of weapon-grade uranium from its stock of less than five percent enriched uranium, meaning that Iran could produce enough weapon-grade uranium for five nuclear weapons in one month and seven in three months.
The IAEA detected uranium particles enriched to 83.7 percent from environmental sampling taken during a monthly interim verification (IIV) at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP) on January 22. Iran’s answers about this anomaly did not satisfy the IAEA, which has continued probing Iran for more credible answers.
The IAEA took the environmental samples that detected the presence of near-84 percent enriched uranium a day after inspectors detected an undeclared interconnection between two IR-6 cascades at Fordow, which Iran should have informed the IAEA about under its safeguards obligations. That change likely led the IAEA to take environmental samples at the product sampling point.
This development amplifies concerns that Iran is undertaking covert experiments that add to its ability to more rapidly break out. Worrisome possibilities include that Iran tested a way to produce near weapon-grade uranium without IAEA detection, or to syphon off a small amount of near 84 percent enriched uranium.
If the high enrichment level was unintentional, as Iran claims, Iran should have reported the unprecedented enrichment level following the interconnection of the two IR-6 cascades, in line with its reporting of previous fluctuations in the enrichment levels encountered by Iran with the advanced centrifuge cascades dedicated to enriching to 60 percent at the pilot plant. If Iran did not know that the enrichment level reached almost 84 percent, it appears to be operating cascades in a dangerous way, somewhat oblivious to criticality concerns.
The IAEA seeks increased access to the FFEP. It reports, “At a technical meeting between senior officials in Tehran on 23 February 2023, Iran confirmed that it would facilitate the notified further increase of the frequency and intensity of Agency verification activities at FFEP.”
As of February 12, Iran had a stock of 87.5 kg (an increase of 25.2 kg) (in uranium mass or U mass) of 60 percent enriched uranium in uranium hexafluoride (UF6) form, or 129.4 kg (in hexafluoride mass or hex mass). Adding to concerns about the purpose of this enriched uranium, Iran has converted only 2 kg of 60 percent highly enriched uranium (HEU)¬¬ (U mass) into a chemical form typically used in civilian nuclear programs and none has been converted since March 2022. Iran keeps the majority (80 percent) of its stock of 60 percent HEU at the Esfahan site, where it maintains a capability to make enriched uranium metal.
Iran’s average production rate of 60 percent enriched uranium has doubled to 8 kg per month (U mass) since Iran began on November 22, 2022 to enrich uranium to near 60 percent in two IR-6 centrifuge cascades at the FFEP, in addition to the two cascades, one containing IR-6 centrifuges and the other IR-4 centrifuges, at the Natanz Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP). In both cases, Iran uses up to 5 percent low enriched uranium (LEU) as feed.
The average production rate of 20 percent enriched uranium at the FFEP decreased by half from 26.8 kg (U mass) or 39.6 kg (hex mass) per month, to 13 kg (U mass) or 19.2 kg (hex mass) per month.
As of February 12, 2023, Iran had an IAEA-estimated stock of 434.7 kg of 20 percent enriched uranium (U mass and in the form of UF6), equivalent to 643 kg (hex mass). Iran also had a stock of 37.7 kg (U mass) of 20 percent uranium in other chemical forms. At the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP), Iran added seven cascades of advanced centrifuges during the last reporting period, for a total installed of 36 cascades of IR-1 centrifuges, 21 cascades of IR-2m centrifuges (up by six), four cascades of IR-4 centrifuges (up by one), and three cascades of IR-6 centrifuges.
During the last six months, Iran installed 15 IR-2m centrifuge cascades at the FEP, or roughly 3,650 centrifuges. It is not clear whether these are newly made centrifuges or those taken from storage.
Iran’s current, total operating enrichment capability is estimated to be about 18,700 separative work units (SWU) per year, higher than the 16,300 SWU per year at the end of the last reporting period. As of the end of this reporting period, Iran was not yet using its fully installed enrichment capacity at the FEP, which, as noted above, has grown substantially.
Average production of near 5 percent LEU at the FEP decreased, but for the second time in a row since early 2021, Iran’s near 5 percent LEU stock increased from one reporting period to the next, reaching 1324.5 kg (U mass).
Despite the increase, during this reporting period, in the amount of uranium enriched between two and five percent, Iran has not prioritized stockpiling of this material, during the last two years. This is at odds with its contention that its primary goal is to accumulate 4-5 percent enriched uranium for use in nuclear power reactor fuel. Instead, Iran has used this stock extensively to produce near 20 percent and 60 percent enriched uranium, far beyond any of Iran’s civilian needs.
Iran’s overall reported stockpile of enriched uranium increased by 87.1 kg (U mass).
The IAEA discussed a discrepancy in Iran’s natural uranium inventory at the Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF). The Wall Street Journal reported that the discrepancy may be related to inspectors’ efforts to locate undeclared uranium Iran used during its early-2000s nuclear weapons program, in which case the IAEA’s upcoming Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) safeguards report may contain more relevant information.
The IAEA reports that it can no longer reestablish continuity of knowledge about Iran’s activities under a revived JCPOA, such as production of advanced centrifuges and heavy water, due to Iran’s decision in February 2021 to deny the IAEA access to data from key JCPOA-related monitoring and surveillance equipment and Iran’s decision in June 2022 to remove all such equipment, including video cameras and online enrichment monitors. The IAEA says it would need to establish a new baseline altogether and would require access to extensive records. It reports, “Any future baseline for [JCPOA] verification and monitoring activities would take a considerable time to establish and would have a significant degree of uncertainty.”
The absence of monitoring and surveillance equipment, particularly since June 2022, has caused the IAEA to doubt its ability to ascertain whether Iran has diverted or may divert advanced centrifuges. A risk is that Iran could accumulate a secret stock of advanced centrifuges, deployable in the future at a clandestine enrichment plant or during a breakout at declared sites. Another risk is that Iran will establish additional centrifuge manufacturing sites unknown to the IAEA. Iran is fully capable of moving manufacturing equipment to new, undeclared sites, further complicating any future verification effort and contributing to uncertainty about where Iran manufactures centrifuges.
The IAEA concludes that “Iran’s decision to remove all of the Agency’s equipment previously installed in Iran for surveillance and monitoring activities in relation to the JCPOA has [had] detrimental implications for the Agency’s ability to provide assurance of the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme.”
Combined with Iran’s refusal to resolve outstanding safeguards violations, the IAEA has a significantly reduced ability to monitor Iran’s complex and growing nuclear program, which notably has unresolved nuclear weapons dimensions. The IAEA’s ability to detect diversion of nuclear materials, equipment, and other capabilities to undeclared facilities remains greatly diminished.
Concern about Iran’s installation of advanced centrifuges at an undeclared site is magnified as its 60 percent HEU stocks grow. Such a scenario becomes more worrisome and viable, since it requires a relatively small number of advanced centrifuge cascades to rapidly enrich the 60 percent material to weapon-grade. This hybrid strategy involves the diversion of safeguarded HEU and the secret manufacture and deployment of only two or three cascades of advanced centrifuges. With greater uncertainty about the number of advanced centrifuges Iran is making, there is a greater chance of Iran hiding away the requisite number of advanced centrifuges to realize this scenario.
Andrea Stricker is deputy director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ (FDD) Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program and an FDD research fellow. Follow her on Twitter @StrickerNonpro. FDD is a nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

The Palestinian Authority for the Rights of Terrorists!
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/March 06/2023
The bill basically states that an Israeli citizen or resident who commits a terrorist act and agrees to receive payment for it from the Palestinian Authority is thereby stating a preference to receive benefits from the Palestinian Authority over those of the State of Israel. When the terrorist completes his prison sentence, he will then move to the place of his chosen alliance, the West Bank or Gaza Strip. Needless to say, this also means that re-entry into Israel is prohibited.
[Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh] is... saying that Israel has no right to defend itself or take any measures against Palestinians involved in terrorism, who are then financially rewarded by his own Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
Paying for murder in lieu of negotiating is not what the Palestinians committed to in the Oslo Accords or any other agreement.
Would-be terrorists can now contemplate that choice [whether to commit murder or stay in Israel], unlike the victims of terror who will never get to "visit family" again.
In the view of the Palestinian leadership, if Palestinians murder innocent civilians simply because they are Jews, that is not racist or unlawful, but if Israelis hold those murderers responsible and imprison them, that is racist and unlawful.
[Shtayyeh] apparently wants to make sure that while he continues to fund the families of the terrorists in the West Bank, the Arab terrorists in Israel will be able to maintain their citizenship, live a pleasant life inside Israel and be able to continue murdering Jews.
In Lebanon, Palestinians, with rare exceptions, are not permitted citizenship, period.
The intriguing thing is that Palestinian officials who are upset by this bill seem extremely worried about "Palestinian rights to citizenship," but only in Israel -- not in Lebanon or Jordan.
What these Palestinian leaders are worried about are the rights of terrorists -- far more than they worry about the living standards or economic hardship that millions of their people face in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The motivation, sadly, seems to be shoring up their own political power at the expense of their people.
They seem concerned about "Palestinian rights" only when it can involve delegitimizing Israel.
The Biden Administration and the European Union, meanwhile, continue to provide political and financial support to the Palestinian Authority without demanding an end to Abbas's "pay-for-slay" "jobs program" that incentivizes and rewards the murder of Jews, or the ongoing campaign to defend the "rights of terrorists."
By their silence, the Biden Administration and the European Union are sending a message to the Palestinians that it is perfectly all right to finance terrorism and murder Jews.
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh is saying that Israel has no right to defend itself or take any measures against Palestinians involved in terrorism, who are then financially rewarded by his own Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Pictured: Shtayyeh speaks at the 36th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union in Addis Ababa on February 18, 2023. (Photo by Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images)
A new bill that is moving swiftly through initial rounds in the Israeli parliament is garnering harsh criticism from the Palestinian leadership. The bill basically states that an Israeli citizen or resident who commits a terrorist act and agrees to receive payment for it from the Palestinian Authority is thereby stating a preference to receive benefits from the Palestinian Authority over those of the State of Israel. When the terrorist completes his prison sentence, he will then move to the place of his chosen alliance, the West Bank or Gaza Strip. Needless to say, this also means that re-entry into Israel is prohibited.
Sounds fair enough. Not, however, to Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh.
According to the Palestinian Authority's official news agency Wafa, Shtayyeh is livid. He has warned of "the serious consequences of the Israeli Knesset's approval of the law to revoke the nationality of our imprisoned children in the lands of 1948 and in the occupied city of Jerusalem."
Notably, Shtayyeh, like many other Palestinians, refers to the State of Israel as "the lands of 1948." That means that these Palestinians do not recognize Israel's existence: as far as they are concerned, Israel is one big settlement that needs to be uprooted.
Shtayyeh is furious about the revocation of the citizenship of terrorists from the state that he refuses to acknowledge exists. He is also saying that Israel has no right to defend itself or take any measures against Palestinians involved in terrorism, who are then financially rewarded by his own Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
It is quite the conundrum. Shtayyeh claims he wants an independent Palestinian state next to Israel, calls Israel the "lands of 1948," but is irate about the revocation of Israeli citizenship from an Arab citizen of Israel. It is a difficult stance to maintain.
Still, he persists, in utter defiance of logic, to appeal to "the United Nations, the United States, and the European Union: To denounce the resolution, and to put pressure on Israel to force it to cancel it... this decision is a racist practice and a flagrant violation of international law and international humanitarian law."
In the view of the Palestinian leadership, if Palestinians murder innocent civilians simply because they are Jews, that is not racist or unlawful, but if Israelis hold those murderers responsible and imprison them, that is racist and unlawful.
The Palestinian Authority is bolstered in this perversion of justice and law by Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which has come out in defense of the "plight" of the murderers, whose citizenship could be revoked under the new law:
"It leaves people without any status, it leaves them stateless... They are even talking about not allowing these people to re-enter Israel – whether with a work permit, or even to visit family."
Would-be terrorists can now contemplate that choice, unlike the victims of terror who will never get to "visit family" again.
Adalah, founded in 1996, calls itself The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights. In light of its position on the revocation of the Israeli citizenship of terrorists, perhaps the group should change its name to The Legal Center for the Rights of Jew-Murderers. The Palestinian Authority, for its part, should change its name to The Palestinian Authority for Defending Terrorists.
Unlike the many times Palestinian leaders have grotesquely called the slaying of children and the murder of innocents a "natural response," this time Shtayyeh has it right when he calls the new legislation "a natural result."
One could almost hope he has seen reason, but that hope is instantly dashed. He continues that this legislation is, "a natural result of the double standards policy, which sends wrong messages to Israel encouraging it to commit more such violations as long as it is able to escape punishment."
Ironically, it is Shtayyeh's Palestinian Authority that "sends the wrong messages" by rewarding terrorism -- in cash -- instead of holding the attackers accountable. Paying for murder in lieu of negotiating is not what the Palestinians committed to in the Oslo Accords or any other agreement.
All the same, Shtayyeh is extremely worried about the rights of terrorists living both in Israel and under the rule of his government in the West Bank. He apparently wants to make sure that while he continues to fund the families of the terrorists in the West Bank, the Arab terrorists in Israel will be able to maintain their citizenship, live a pleasant life inside Israel and be able to continue murdering Jews.
This is about to change, it seems -- and that is why the Palestinian leaders are having a fit.
Israel has had enough of seeing murderers released to the cheers and parades of a hero's welcome, as witnessed recently with the release of Israeli Arab citizen Karim Younis, who murdered an Israeli soldier in 1980.
After being carried on the shoulders of an admiring crowd, Younis declared that he would gladly do it again if given the chance. "I'm prepared to serve another 40 years in order to liberate the homeland of the Palestine," he was quoted as saying.
To ensure that more terrorists do not get the chance to continue murdering Jews, 94 members of the Israeli parliament, in an unusually cross-spectrum representation, voted in favor of the recent legislation.
Minister of Knesset Ofir Katz, commenting on the bill, said:
"Let there be no mistake... it doesn't matter if it is a terror organization or a lone terrorist. I promise the bereaved families who are here or are watching us... we will not allow a situation where, while our brothers are bleeding to death, just a few meters away the families of the terrorists will joyfully hand out candy."
The intriguing thing is that Palestinian officials who are upset by this bill seem extremely worried about "Palestinian rights to citizenship," but only in Israel -- not in Lebanon or Jordan.
In Lebanon, Palestinians, with rare exceptions, are not permitted citizenship, period. They are prohibited from owning property, from working in most desirable vocations, and are denied even the most basic government welfare services. Palestinians are considered by Lebanese authorities as "refugees."
"Palestinian camps in Lebanon are ghetto-like settlements, sometimes surrounded by segregation walls, barbed wire and military surveillance," according to Lebanese journalist Sawssan Abou-Zahr. "They are overcrowded and unorganized concrete blocks with decaying infrastructure."
The Lebanese government's human rights record regarding the Palestinians in its country is beyond dismal.
Instead of addressing the criminal treatment of his people in Lebanon and seeking reforms, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in his 2017 visit to Lebanon, was seen hobnobbing with celebrities at the Arab Idol television show. Somehow, he missed visiting a single Palestinian refugee camp.
One of the camp residents bitterly noted:
"Abbas doesn't know about suffering and us being deprived of civil rights and the right to work, and Abbas doesn't care about the living conditions of the people here."
Another asked, "Why did he come?... Did anything change.... will we be able to own property or get passports and travel to other countries?"
The answer is no.
In Jordon, Palestinians are permitted citizenship but can easily be stripped of it. This problem does not seem to be of urgent concern for either the Palestinian Authority or Abbas, although there has been a lot of mutual back-patting and behind-the-scenes coordination.
The advocacy group Minority Rights spells out the situation:
"... the Jordanian government has engaged in a policy of stripping some Palestinians of their Jordanian citizenship, often on apparently arbitrary grounds... and had few practical avenues through which to appeal the decision.... [Jordan] has also engaged in refoulement of Palestinian refugees to Syria, in contravention of international law."
According to a report from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, when Palestinians in Jordan are stripped of their citizenship,
"children... can be barred entrance to, or expelled from, public schools.... Palestinians.... can be fired from current employment no matter the length of time or status in such a position.... and have rendered lifetimes of work and experience irrelevant."
Worse, Palestinians stripped of citizenship in Jordan can no longer "obtain certain medical treatment free or at low cost at public health facilities. Stateless Palestinians are excluded from those benefits."
Abbas and Jordan's King Abdullah II are working together for political control rather than out of any actual concern for the Palestinians' condition. As for stripping thousands of Palestinian-Jordanian's of citizenship, "Jordanian officials have defended the practice as a means to counter any future Israeli plans to transfer the Palestinian population of the Israeli-occupied West Bank to Jordan." Needless to say, this is a false accusation and another libel against Israel.
Abbas actually approved this revocation of citizenship in Jordan to cut short the US and international suggestion throughout many years that actually "Jordan is Palestine."
Whether in Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank or anywhere else, Abbas, Shtayyeh and the Palestinian Authority are not worried about the rights of Palestinians, their citizenship, or international law. What these Palestinian leaders are worried about are the rights of terrorists -- far more than they worry about the living standards or economic hardship that millions of their people face in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The motivation, sadly, seems to be shoring up their own political power at the expense of their people.
They seem concerned about "Palestinian rights" only when it can involve delegitimizing Israel.
The Biden Administration and the European Union, meanwhile, continue to provide political and financial support to the Palestinian Authority without demanding an end to Abbas's "pay-for-slay" "jobs program" that incentivizes and rewards the murder of Jews, or the ongoing campaign to defend the "rights of terrorists."
By their silence, the Biden Administration and the European Union are sending a message to the Palestinians that it is perfectly all right to finance terrorism and murder Jews.
*Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab Based in the Middle East.
© 2023 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

A War With China Would Be Unlike Anything Americans Faced Before
Ross Babbage/The New York Times/March, 06/2023
A major war in the Indo-Pacific is probably more likely now than at any other time since World War II.
The most probable spark is a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. President Xi Jinping of China has said unifying Taiwan with mainland China “must be achieved.” His Communist Party regime has become sufficiently strong — militarily, economically and industrially — to take Taiwan and directly challenge the United States for regional supremacy.
The United States has vital strategic interests at stake. A successful Chinese invasion of Taiwan would punch a hole in the US and allied chain of defenses in the region, seriously undermining America’s strategic position in the Western Pacific, and would probably cut off US access to world-leading semiconductors and other critical components manufactured in Taiwan. As president, Joe Biden has stated repeatedly that he would defend Taiwan.
But leaders in Washington also need to avoid stumbling carelessly into a war with China because it would be unlike anything ever faced by Americans. US citizens have grown accustomed to sending their military off to fight far from home. But China is a different kind of foe — a military, economic and technological power capable of making a war felt in the American homeland.
As a career strategic analyst and defense planner, including for Australia’s Defense Department, I have spent decades studying how a war could start, how it would play out and the military and nonmilitary operations that China is prepared to conduct. I am convinced that the challenges facing the United States are serious, and its citizens need to become better aware of them.
The military scenario alone is daunting: China would probably launch a lightning air, sea and cyber assault to seize control of key strategic targets on Taiwan within hours, before the United States and its allies could intervene. Taiwan is slightly bigger than the state of Maryland; if you recall how quickly Afghanistan and Kabul fell to the Taliban in 2021, you start to realize that the takeover of Taiwan could happen relatively quickly. China also has more than 1,350 ballistic and cruise missiles poised to strike US and allied forces in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and American-held territories in the Western Pacific. Then there’s the sheer difficulty the United States would face waging war thousands of miles across the Pacific against an adversary that has the world’s largest navy and Asia’s biggest air force.
Despite this, US military planners would prefer to fight a conventional war. But the Chinese are prepared to wage a much broader type of warfare that would reach deep into American society.
Over the past decade, China has increasingly viewed the United States as mired in political and social crises. Mr. Xi, who likes to say that “the East is rising while the West is declining,” evidently feels that America’s greatest weakness is on its home front. And I believe he is ready to exploit this with a multipronged campaign to divide Americans and undermine and exhaust their will to engage in a prolonged conflict — what China’s military calls enemy disintegration.
Over the past two decades, China has built formidable political warfare and cyber warfare capabilities designed to penetrate, manipulate and disrupt the United States and allied governments, media organizations, businesses and civil society. If war were to break out, China can be expected to use this to disrupt communications and spread fake news and other disinformation. The aim would be to foster confusion, division and distrust and hinder decision making. China might compound this with electronic and probably some physical attacks on satellites or related infrastructure.
These operations would most likely be accompanied by cyber offensives to disrupt electricity, gas, water, transport, health care and other public services. China has demonstrated its capabilities already, including in Taiwan, where it has waged disinformation campaigns, and in serious hacking incidents in the United States. Mr. Xi has championed China’s political warfare capabilities as a “magic weapon.”
China could also weaponize its dominance of supply chains and shipping. The impact on Americans would be profound.
The US economy is heavily dependent on Chinese resources and manufactured goods, including many with military applications, and American consumers rely on moderately priced Chinese-made imports for everything from electronics to furniture to shoes. The bulk of these goods is transported aboard ships along sea lanes increasingly controlled by Chinese commercial interests that are ultimately answerable to China’s party-state. A war would halt this trade (as well as American and allied shipments to China).
US supplies of many products could soon run low, paralyzing a vast range of businesses. It could take months to restore trade, and emergency rationing of some items would be needed. Inflation and unemployment would surge, especially in the period in which the economy is repurposed for the war effort, which might include some automobile manufacturers switching to building aircraft or food-processing companies converting to production of priority pharmaceuticals. Stock exchanges in the United States and other countries might temporarily halt trading because of the enormous economic uncertainties.
The United States might be forced to confront the shocking realization that the industrial muscle instrumental in victories like that in World War II — President Franklin Roosevelt’s concept of America as “the arsenal of democracy” — has withered and been surpassed by China.
China is now the dominant global industrial power by many measures. In 2004 US manufacturing output was more than twice China’s; in 2021, China’s output was double that of the United States. China produces more ships, steel and smartphones than any other country and is a world leader in the production of chemicals, metals, heavy industrial equipment and electronics — the basic building blocks of a military-industrial economy.
Critically, the United States is no longer able to outproduce China in advanced weapons and other supplies needed in a war, which the current one in Ukraine has made clear. Provision of military hardware to Kyiv has depleted American stocks of some key military systems. Rebuilding them could take years. Yet the war in Ukraine is relatively small-scale compared with the likely demands of a major war in the Indo-Pacific.
So what needs to be done?
On the military front, the United States should accelerate programs already underway to strengthen and disperse American forces in the Western Pacific to make them less vulnerable to attacks by China. At home, a concerted effort must be made to find ways to better protect US traditional and social media against Chinese disinformation. Supply chains of some critical goods and services need to be reconfigured to shift production to the United States or allied nations, and the United States must pursue a longer-term strategic drive to restore its dominance in global manufacturing.
Building a stronger deterrence by addressing such weaknesses is the best means of averting war. But this will take time. Until then, it is important for Washington to avoid provocations and maintain a civil discourse with Beijing.
The high-altitude balloon that drifted across the United States this month was seen by many Americans as a shocking Chinese breach of US sovereignty. It may turn out to be child’s play compared with the havoc China could wreak on the American homeland in a war.

بارعة علم الدين/نظام ملالي إيران المشين: تسميم للفتيات ، اغتصاب للمتظاهرين وتهريب السلاح
A regime in disgrace: poisoning girls, raping protesters, smuggling arms
Baria Alamuddin/Arab news/March 06/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/116339/116339/
As a confused and ailing Tehran regime lashes out, it is girls and women who have come under attack. Up to 60 girls’ schools, mainly in and around the theological stronghold of Qom, have been targeted with poison gas. Hundreds of girls have required hospital treatment, with 1,200 affected in Qom and Borujerd alone.
The scale and magnitude of these attacks demonstrate that this is an orchestrated campaign, but Iran’s leadership have been more concerned with downplaying the attacks and blaming foreign “enemies” than apprehending those responsible. President Ebrahim Raisi wildly accused unnamed foreign states of waging a “hybrid war” against Iran, making paranoid accusations in the same speech that the outside world was to blame for his government’s incompetent handling of the economy and the crash of the currency.
Who is he trying to fool? Deputy Health Minister Younes Panahi and Deputy Interior Minister Majid Mirahmadi have already acknowledged that whoever is behind the attacks is trying to prevent girls from going to school. After the death of Fatemeh Rezaei, an 11-year-old schoolgirl in Qom, the local prosecutor ordered her family not to talk to the media and to bury her without comment. Videos have circulated of police beating up parents protesting that their daughters were poisoned. Protesters outside the Education Ministry chanted: “Basij! Guards! You are our Daesh!”
It can be no coincidence that girls’ education establishments were at the center of the revolt against the regime after the killing of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, when girls burnt their hijabs and called for an end to tyranny. It is widely believed that pro-regime hard-liners are now seeking to terrorize girls into dropping out of education, forcing schools to shut and demonstrating the cost of engagement in political activity. This fear of educated women is evidence of exactly the same regressive mentality as that of the Taliban and Boko Haram.
Yet Iran’s courageous women refuse to be cowed. It is now the norm for women to be out in public without hijab, in flagrant disregard of the religious police. They have breached the barriers of fear, and the regime can do nothing.
Research now shows how the regime systematically deployed rape, sexual assault and torture against thousands of women, men and even girls detained during protests. Just think! This is a regime supposedly based on Islamic principles (which triggered the protests in the first place through brutish attempts to enforce “modest” clothing), now resorting to the most disgusting ungodly methods to keep its restless population in line. Conservative pro-regime demographics were also repulsed by such methods, further undermining the ayatollahs’ legitimacy.
According to Amnesty International, Iran has already executed around 100 people so far in 2023, including many killed for political activism. In a sign that the regime has begun to devour its own, one of these executed was a prominent former Defense Ministry official, Alireza Akbari.
Western officials are furthermore warning that Iran is evolving into a global leader in the production and export of discount-price drones and missiles. The relative cheapness of Iran’s drones has altered the contours of the Ukraine conflict, allowing Russia to stage devastating attacks on civilians and economic targets. Ukrainian cities are now the murderous testing ground for further deadly Iranian innovations.
Iranian military intelligence officials gloat that they can reap billions of dollars by selling such weapons throughout Africa and Asia, to buyers including terrorists and insurgents. “Our power has grown to levels where China is waiting in line to buy 15,000 of our drones,” one official boasted. Copious revenues from such illegal exports will be reinvested back into enhancing Iranian war-making capacities, including bankrolling regionwide militancy. The scope, accuracy and destructive capabilities of Iran’s immense ballistic missiles program has advanced to the degree that parts of Europe are within easy range.
As the Tehran regime murders, poisons, tortures and rapes thousands of its own citizens, it simultaneously poses an existential threat to global security.
The vague promises of enhanced cooperation made to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, are laughable; we have heard such meaningless pledges before when the regime comes under diplomatic pressure. And within hours of the latest joint IAEA-Iran statement, Tehran was already issuing denials that agreement had been reached on specific issues such as deployment of CCTV cameras and site visits.
In a further example of Iranian weapons proliferation, the British Royal Navy impounded a boat in the Gulf of Oman transporting Iranian-made anti-tank guided rockets and components of medium-range ballistic missiles to the Houthis — just one of hundreds of such shipments.
Iran, meanwhile, by its own admission, has enriched uranium particles up to just short of weapons grade, at 83.7 percent purity. I’ve been covering the Iran nuclear issue long enough to recall how alarm bells were sounded when Iran was enriching uranium at 5 percent purity … and then 20 percent ... and then 60 percent ... and at each juncture we heard strong-sounding denouncements from world leaders about how Iran wouldn’t be allowed to go any further.
The regime’s current state of non-cooperation with the IAEA means that we simply don’t know what Iran is doing at its nuclear sites. A Pentagon official said Iran now needs only 12 days to make sufficient nuclear material for a bomb, and is capable of making up to seven in three months. Just as with North Korea, we may awaken one morning to discover that Iran has tested a nuclear bomb capable of wiping out entire cities.
CIA director Bill Burns complacently says he has no evidence that Iran is immediately preparing to build a bomb — but why does he think the ayatollahs are stockpiling 60 percent-enriched uranium that has no legitimate civilian use?
Nevertheless, Tehran should be unnerved by a flurry of recent nuclear-focused diplomatic activity between Israel and Washington, including regional visits by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley. The latter said his exceptional visit to Syria was worth the risk, given intensified activities by Daesh and Iran-backed militias, and prospects for regionwide conflict.
We may not be witnessing the end of the mullahs’ regime, but it is at least the beginning of the end, as the regime obsessively disgraces itself by taking all the wrong steps, and making a pre-emptive Israeli-US strike against nuclear sites all but inevitable.
The rapidity of these domestic and expansionist activities is disorientating: This is a regime spinning out of control, in defiance of the most pessimistic estimates of its capabilities for destabilizing the region, even as the symptoms of internal chaos and collapse become all too obvious.
As the Tehran regime murders, poisons, tortures and rapes thousands of its own citizens, it simultaneously poses an existential threat to global security. So what exactly is the world waiting for?
• Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.

د.ماجد رفي زاده: التفاوت الاقتصادي في إيران يشكل تهديدا للنظام
Iran’s economic disparity a threat to the regime
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab news/March 06/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/116339/116339/
Iran’s economic disparity a threat to the regime
The leadership is enjoying revenues from exports such as oil and gas.
As long as the Iranian leaders continue to disregard their people’s dissatisfaction with the economy, widespread protests are destined to erupt across the nation once again.
When it comes to the economic situation, there is a stark distinction between the privileged few at the top and the ordinary people. As long as revenues from the export of oil and other natural resources are coming into the treasury of the regime, the worsening domestic economy is not fundamentally impacting the living standards of the regime’s officials or those connected to them.
But the increasing gap between ordinary people and the authorities is a major threat to the survival of the theocratic establishment. According to figures recently released by the regime’s own Interior Ministry, nearly 70 percent of the population are living below the poverty line.
Ebrahim Razzaghi, a former professor of economics at Tehran University, told Iranian newspaper Aftab News: “In the past, the absolute poverty line was around 10 million tomans, which has increased up to 12 million tomans due to recent high prices and lack of salary increase. For this reason, the question is, how do those who make promises to the people want to break this poverty line and fulfill their promises?”
He added: “Other official statistics show that between 20 and 30 million people in the country are below the absolute poverty line. Undoubtedly, if this situation continues and economic policies do not change, these statistics will increase day by day and will become uncontrollable in the future.”
Ebrahim Neko, a representative of the Islamic Council of Iran, said: “90 percent of Iranian people have experienced poverty in some fashion in their lives. Even if some earn more than 12 million, they still have tasted poverty in some ways.”
Now, compare the situation of the overwhelming majority of the ordinary people with government officials. For example, the unelected leader of the regime, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has a financial empire worth about $200 billion. Also, the children of the elite — the “aghazadeh,” or “noble-born” — appear on Instagram channels such as “Rich Kids of Tehran,” which show images of the elite flaunting their wealth and enjoying lavish lifestyles at home and abroad.
One of the problems ordinary people face is that the value of Iran’s currency continues to plummet. Last week it dropped to 600,000 rials to the dollar for the first time in the history of the regime. This is happening while the unemployment rate and inflation are at record highs. According to a Feb. 26 report by Fox Business: “Iranians’ purchasing power has been decimated by inflation, which reached an annual rate of 53.4 percent in January — up from 41.4 percent two years (ago) according to the country’s statistics center. The dire economic circumstances have wiped out the life savings of many and caused Iranians to form long lines at currency exchange offices in recent days in an effort to acquire increasingly scarce dollars.”
Corruption is ingrained in Iran’s political and financial institutions, which are the country’s backbone.
Another underlying issue is that corruption is ingrained in Iran’s political and financial institutions, which are the country’s backbone. Embezzlement and money laundering within the banking system are prime examples of corruption. Politicians across the political spectrum, including members of the president’s office, have been known to engage in corrupt practices for their own political and financial benefit.
Prominent cases have included influential people such as Hamid Baghaei, a former vice president and confidant of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hossein Fereydoun, the brother of former President Hassan Rouhani and a member of the Moderation and Development Party, who was formerly in charge of the supreme leader’s security. Corruption also often takes place by granting loans, financial benefits and fellowships to relatives of senior officials or those who show loyalty.
Furthermore, the hemorrhaging of the nation’s wealth on militias, terror groups and proxies across the region is a major factor contributing to the crisis. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its affiliates, the Office of the Supreme Leader and the regime’s cronies are the ones largely in control, as they have power over considerable parts of the country’s economy and financial systems.
Finally, nepotism, economic mismanagement, a lack of government transparency and a state-controlled economy that blocks the poor from socioeconomic growth and joining the middle class are also among the core reasons for the inequality in Iran.
In summary, Iran’s dire economic situation is not impacting the living standards of those in positions of power or their loyalists, but it is negatively affecting the ordinary people of the country. The leadership is enjoying revenues from exports such as oil and gas, while the overwhelming majority of the population are suffering economically. This increasing economic disparity is one of the regime’s major challenges and it could endanger the hold on power of the theocratic establishment if immediate and appropriate measures are not taken.
• Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist.
Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh

Islam’s Christian Martyrs through the Ages
Raymond Ibrahim/PJ Media/March 06/2023
The Cathedral of Otranto, Italy, houses the remains of 800 Christians ritually beheaded for refusing Islam.
Last February 15, 2023 marked the eight year anniversary of when the Islamic State slaughtered 21 Christians in Libya for refusing to recant their faith. While sitting atop and holding their tied victims’ bodies down, Islamic State members shoved their fingers in the Christians’ eye sockets, craned their heads back, and sliced away at their throats with knives. Some of the Christians could be seen mouthing, “Oh, Lord Jesus Christ,” in the seconds before having their heads carved off.
Inasmuch as the 21 martyrs should be remembered and commemorated, they are ultimately modern day reflections of an ancient (and ongoing) phenomenon that permeates nearly fourteen centuries of history: Muslims slaughtering Christians who refuse to renounce Christ and embrace Muhammad.
Indeed, on this day in history, March 6, Catholic and Orthodox churches commemorate 42 other Christians who were also beheaded 1,170 years before half their number—the 21 Coptic Christians—were executed under very similar circumstances. Known as the 42 Martyrs of Amorium, their story follows:
In 838, Caliph al-Mu‘tasim—at the head of eighty thousand slave-soldiers—burst into Amorium, one of the Eastern Roman Empire’s largest and most important cities. They burned and razed it to the ground and slaughtered countless; everywhere there were “bodies heaped up in piles,” writes a chronicler. The invaders locked those who sought sanctuary inside their churches and set the buildings aflame; trapped Christians could be heard crying kyrie eleison—“Lord have mercy!” in Greek—while being roasted alive. Hysterical “women covered their children, like chickens, so as not to be separated from them, either by sword or slavery.”
About half of the city’s seventy thousand citizens were slaughtered, the rest hauled off in chains. There was such a surplus of human booty that when the caliph came across four thousand male prisoners he ordered them executed on the spot. Because there “were so many women’s convents and monasteries” in this populous Christian city, “over a thousand virgins were led into captivity, not counting those that had been slaughtered. They were given to the Moorish and Turkish slaves, so as to assuage their lust,” laments the chronicler.
When the young emperor, Theophilus (r. 829–842), heard about the sack of Amorium—his hometown, chosen by the caliph for that very reason, to make the sting hurt all the more—he fell ill and died three years later, aged 28, reportedly of sorrow. Meanwhile, the Muslim poet Abu Tammam (805‐845) celebrated the caliph’s triumph, since “You have left the fortunes of the sons of Islam in the ascendant, and the polytheists [Christians] and the abode of polytheism in decline.” (For the full story of Amorium, see Chapter 4 of Sword and Scimitar.)
Among the many captives carted off to Iraq were forty-two notables, mostly from the military and clerical classes (which in early Christianity were often closely associated). Due to their prestigious status and in order to make them trophies of Islam, they were repeatedly pressured to convert:
During the seven years of their imprisonment, their captors tried in vain to persuade them to renounce Christianity and accept Islam. The captives stubbornly resisted all their seductive offers and bravely held out against terrible threats. After many torments that failed to break the spirit of the Christian soldiers, they condemned them to death, hoping to shake the determination of the saints before executing them. The martyrs remained steadfast…
Interestingly, some of the arguments used by Muslims indicate that they acknowledged Christ as the Prince of Peace and Muhammad as the Lord of War—and played it to great effect. One Theodore, a Christian cleric who fought in defense of Amorium, was goaded as follows: “We know that you forsook the priestly office, became a soldier and shed blood [of Muslims] in battle. You can have no hope in Christ, whom you abandoned voluntarily, so accept Mohammed.” Theodore replied: “You do not speak truthfully when you say that I abandoned Christ. Moreover, I left the priesthood because of my own unworthiness. Therefore, I must shed my blood for the sake of Christ, so that He might forgive the sins that I have committed against Him.”
In the end, none would recant; and so, on March 6, 845, after seven years of torture and temptation failed to make them submit to Muhammad, all 42 Christians were—like their 21 spiritual descendants, the Coptic martyrs—also marched to a body of water, the Euphrates River, ritually beheaded, and their bodies dumped into the river.
Historical texts throughout the centuries are filled with similar anecdotes, including the “60 Martyrs of Gaza,” Christian soldiers who were executed for refusing Islam during the seventh century Islamic invasion of Jerusalem. Seven centuries later, during the Islamic invasion of Georgia, Christians refusing to convert were forced into their church and set on fire.
Closer to home, in 1480, the Turks invaded Italy and sacked the city of Otranto. More than half of its 22,000 inhabitants were massacred, 5,000 hauled off in chains. To demonstrate his magnanimity, Sultan Muhammad II offered freedom to 800 chained Christian captives, on condition that they all embrace Islam. Instead, they unanimously chose to act on the words of one of their numbers: “My brothers, we have fought to save our city; now it is time to battle for our souls!”
Outraged that his invitation was spurned, on August 14 on a hilltop (subsequently named “Martyr’s Hill”), Muhammad ordered the ritual decapitation of these 800 unfortunates; their archbishop was slowly sawed in half to jeers and triumphant cries of “Allah Akbar!” (The skeletal remains of some of these defiant Christians were preserved and can still be seen in the Cathedral of Otranto.)
Whoever still fails to see a pattern in the martyrdom of Christians at the hands of Muslims might consider consulting the book, Witnesses for Christ: it lists 200 anecdotes of Christians killed—including some burned at the stake, thrown on iron spikes, dismembered, stoned, stabbed, shot at, drowned, pummeled to death, impaled and crucified—for refusing to embrace Islam during the Ottoman era alone.